Live Chat in the Chatroom tonight at 8.30pm Sydney time and also starting at 9.30pm for those in NZ so they don't have to stay up to late. News for today Zee is on air with some test cards expect them to be testing for a few days before they go CA. Site seemed to be down for some reason when checked last night no idea why.

PLEASE READ I notice from the logs that some people are entering via www.apsattv.com/satslist this means you have bookmarked the site incorectly and wont be able to get at the other pages. DO NOT bookmark the site by right clicking your mouse and adding to bookmarks otherwise you only get whats in the frame.Look above if it says www.apsattv.com/satslist then you have the site bookmarked wrong. Re-enter the site at www.apsattv.com then bookmark useing alt-A for explorer or Control-D for Netscape.

From my Email

D.Holbrook reports via ICQ NRL feed that was on yesterday Optus B3 Pal/Analog 12450H did not screen live anywhere in Australia. It didn't screen here live either Sky was showing the Warriors and straight after there was another match, Sky didn't screen the game untill 7.30pm. Might be worth keeping an eye on that freq next weekend.

Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat) and Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany's international broadcaster, signed a lease extension agreement for one 36 MHz C-band transponder on AsiaSat 2 for a further five year period on 27 July 2000 in Hong Kong.

Chief Engineer Peter Senger that the German public broadcaster will pay AsiaSat US$2.5 million per year for the service under the new contract.

The agreement, which was signed by Peter Jackson, Chief Executive Officer of AsiaSat and Dieter Weirich, Director General of Deutsche Welle, means that Deutsche Welle television and radio programs will continue to be available in optimum quality to the entire Asia-Pacific region. Together with Deutsche Welle, programs from leading European international broadcasters will be transmitted in the European Bouquet.

The European Bouquet currently comprises five European TV broadcasters - Deutsche Welle tv (Germany), TV5 (French speaking), RAI International (Rome), TVE (Madrid) and MCM (Paris). In addition, 19 radio programs are also available on the bouquet including those from Deutsche Welle (with seven channels), RAI Radio International, Radio Exterior de España, Radio France Internationale, Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, Swiss Radio International, World Radio Network, YLE Radio Finland and Radio Canada International. It is expected that the current range of five TV programs will be extended to include three more channels in 2001.

Deutsche Welle has been broadcasting its German-language television and radio programs, as well as transmitting other European-language programs, to Asia through AsiaSat for the past five years.

"We are very pleased that Deutsche Welle has chosen to continue to use our service. I believe this reflects AsiaSat's exceptional service and the popularity of the satellite within the region. I also believe that the European Bouquet on AsiaSat 2 definitely strengthens the presence of European television and radio programs in Asia and Australia," said Jackson.

"Digital European Bouquet represents a successful strategy for penetrating the highly promising Asian market," added Deutsche Welle's Weirich. "Five years after starting our digital operations in the future-oriented Asia-Pacific market, we have successfully positioned ourselves as the only broadcaster offering authentic information from Germany in the heart of a Europe that is becoming increasingly united. Today, Deutsche Welle is counted among the most attractive suppliers of internationally available TV programs in this region."

The satellite AsiaSat 2 carries twenty 36 MHz and four 72 MHz C-band transponders, as well as nine 54 MHz Ku-band linearized transponders. The C-band transponders and Ku-band transponders had a utilization rate at 73 percent and 75 percent respectively at the end of 1999, said AsiaSat company officials.

AsiaSat is in talks with other potential partners and is particularly interested in penetrating the China and India markets, the company said.

AsiaSat, the leading provider of high-quality satellite transponder capacity in Asia, serves over two-thirds of the world's population with its satellites. The AsiaSat satellite system provides services to both the broadcast and telecommunications industries. Over 100 analogue and digital television channels and 90 radio channels are now delivered by the company's satellites, reaching over 80 million households, with more than 300 million viewers across the Asia Pacific region. Many telecommunications customers use AsiaSat for public telephone networks, private VSAT networks and high speed Internet and multimedia services.

AsiaSat is a wholly owned subsidiary of Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Limited, a company listed on both the Hong Kong (SEHK: 1135) and New York (NYSE: SAT) stock exchanges. AsiaSat's two major shareholders are China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) and Société Européenne des Satellites (SES), the operator of Europe's premier ASTRA satellite system.

Deutsche Welle is Germany's only external broadcasting service, which has been operating in various parts of the world for over forty-five years. Presently, they are transmitting television programs in German and English, and radio services in German and 29 other languages worldwide.

DW-tv reaches around seven million cable households in Asia. Principally in India and the Philippines, where Deutsche Welle programs are available on local cable networks. About 400 hotels receive Deutsche Welle television programs, and some 130 radio stations, predominantly in Indonesia and Australia, broadcast Deutsche Welle programs.

Star TV Ups Stake In Asia's Channel V Satellite Service

From Satnewsasia.com

Star TV announced today that it acquired BMG's and Warner Music's respective stakes in Channel V Music Networks Limited Partnership (Channel [V]). After the acquisition, STAR TV holds 87.5% of Channel [V], with EMI remaining as a partner.

Star, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., had already bought Sony's 12.5 percent stake earlier this year. The transactions leave EMI as the only remaining minority partner in the satellite television service.

Star TV is Asia's leading media production and distribution company. Star's 30 distributed services, in seven languages, reach more than 300 million viewers across 53 Asia countries. Star distributes its services via cable and satellite and is committed to building the leading multi-platform, multi-service digital media business in Asia.

No Sky NZ fta signals its been checked and although subscribers are getting the Sundance channel free it seems Sky just reactivated everyones card for the channel that weekend. Theres nothing to report for today except at 1.30pm Sydney time Holbrook reports via ICQ theres a league match starting on B1 12450 H Analogue. Sorry about the lack of news, hope theres some about tommorow!.

INTELSAT and Telstra Corporation Limited announced today that they have concluded a major agreement with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for coverage of the upcoming Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. This new agreement brings to 40,000 the number of program hours that have been booked through Telstra on seven different INTELSAT satellites -- for broadcast to a global Olympic audience estimated at up to four billion people.
The EBU, the largest professional association of national broadcasters in the world, has signed eight short-term leases with Telstra on the INTELSAT 804 satellite at 64°E and on the INTELSAT 704 satellite at 66°E for the broadcasting of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. The deal was announced at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention here this week.
The EBU transmissions will include more than 25 full-time program channels to over 30 broadcasters, and will be received at 42 locations. These broadcasters include the BBC, TVE of Spain, ZDF of Germany, and RAI of Italy. The channels will use a combination of MPEG-2 and ETSI digital transmission formats.
Telstra, the Official Telecommunications Supplier of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and Australian INTELSAT founding member and Signatory, coordinated these leases for the EBU on the Australian side, and will be supporting the EBU's local connections from each event venue to the International Broadcast Center (IBC) in Sydney. On the European side, the EBU will be receiving its feeds with help from Deutsche Telekom, BT, Telenor, and Telespazio. INTELSAT and its Signatory partners started working with the EBU to plan for the Sydney Olympic Games as far back as 1997.
Etienne Hertsens, Head of the EBU's Network Division, commented, "We are very confident that the Telstra-INTELSAT partnership will result in very successful coverage of the Sydney Olympic Games. The EBU traditionally has chosen INTELSAT because of its system reliability and superior customer service. INTELSAT has always regarded the EBU's major events with utmost importance, reserving capacity years in advance for Olympics and World Cup Football events, when no other satellite system would commit. We also use INTELSAT because of the expertise of its regional service partners, like Telstra. We have been most impressed by the organization and professionalism displayed by the Telstra team."
The EBU, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, serves 69 national broadcasters from 50 countries in the European area, and has 49 associate members further afield. Eurovision, a service of the EBU, provides ad-hoc transmissions to broadcast mainly sports, cultural and news programs to its members and customers. In 1999 alone, Eurovision transmitted more than 100,000 news reports and 8,000 hours of sporting and cultural events.
Telstra has also reached agreements with the broadcasters from the USA, Canada, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Janette Woodward, Senior Sales and Marketing Manager of Olympic Media and Broadcast Solutions, Telstra, said, "We are delighted that Telstra was chosen by international broadcasters for an event of this significance. Managing the international transmission of the Games via the INTELSAT system for broadcasters throughout the world highlights Telstra's capabilities to deliver world-leading broadcasting and communications services."
Harry Mahon, INTELSAT's Group Director for Worldwide Video Services, said, "INTELSAT is very pleased to be working with Telstra to provide the EBU and our other broadcaster customers transmissions for the Sydney Olympic Games. INTELSAT's global system enables broadcasters to reach all five continents during this major event. For the EBU, we are able to offer an effective combination of C- and Ku-band connectivities to match specific reception needs. This agreement demonstrates INTELSAT's unique flexibility in connectivity options, as well as our high levels of customer service and reliability."
Telstra is responsible for building and managing the telecommunications infrastructure -- the Telstra Millennium Network? -- that will broadcast to up to four billion people around the world. Telstra Olympic Media and Broadcast Solutions Group, headed by Graham Hooson, provides a comprehensive range of broadcast services including domestic video, international cable and satellite, mobile and fixed earth stations, digital video transmission platforms as well as technical design, planning and service co-ordination. For more information, visit the Telstra web site at www.telstra.com.
INTELSAT owns and operates a global communications satellite system providing capacity for voice, video, corporate/private networks and Internet in more than 200 countries and territories.
For further information, please contact us at media.relations@intelsat.int or at +1 202-944-7500

29/7/00

Sky NZ no one has confirmed if some of the channels are fta yet! Have a look for it YES the Signal does make it to Australia if you can get the Epal Channel 10 Sky NZ is on the same Beam (Different Freq though and a LOT weaker) Lyngsat does not have all the Sky Channels available shown.

Austar "Snake Game" this only works on the new ADB boxes on the Radio channel 25 named TONE you can play SNAKE by pressing OK, which takes u to the game and you can move around by using the arrows on yourremote control. But u might want turn the sound off because there is annoying tone noise.

Telstra is investigating the possibility of offering "TV-like" channels to its 40,000 cable Internet subscribers, it was revealed today.

Satellite Internet provider Access1 has revealed it is negotiating to provide its AccessTV service to Telstra's Big Pond Advance customers. If the deal goes ahead, the TV-style channels will be available via Telstra's cable Internet, satellite and the new ADSL copper-line Internet service.

Access1 already delivers its AccessTV service to Australians via satellite. The service includes Bloomberg finance news and Olympics and sports coverage from the Seven Network's pay TV arm C7. According to Access1, the service "operates in full screen mode at 25 frames per second giving TV quality vision on a PC screen".

Access1 chairperson David Spence describes the current situation as an "umbrella agreement", but there has been no announcement from Telstra. A Telstra spokesperson confirmed today that Telstra is negotiating to use Access1 content, but told Newswire that no deal has been signed.

The news follows last week's decision by the government not to subject media delivered over the Internet to the same strict regulations as data provided over digital TV. The Internet industry had strongly opposed any moves to regulate streaming video online, and said it would result in major damage to local Internet investments.

Access1 signs broadband agreement with Telstra's Big Pond

13:58 Thursday 27 July 2000
AAP
MULTIMEDIA provider Access1 has signed a broadband contract agreement with Telstra's Big Pond Internet service to provide the telco with its AccessTV content.
The service, branded "Access1 brought to you by Telstra Big Pond'', will be broadcast to Telstra's 40,000 broadband users, the largest Internet audience in Australia.

Access1 chairman David Spence said the service would be "TV-like", with various channels, but would also allow advertisers to target their ideal market.

"We are creating a new market for the delivery of full-motion interactive advertising, where advertising can be served to individual users or demographics,'' he said.

AccessTV will be available to all Big Pond Advance users as well as Telstra's new digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, which enables broadband usage without disconnecting the phone line.

Star to decide on uplinking plan by next weekend

from indiantelevision.com

The recent decision taken by the government to allow broadcasters to uplink directly from India seems to have caught the fancy of almost all the television channels and most of them might be thinking about uplinking form India.

Not to be left behind, officials at Star will be meeting through next week to decide about uplinking from India. According to a Star spokesperson, if the policy is there, they would definitely take a look at it. He also said that they might take some decision regarding this issue by next weekend.

Asked whether Star's content partner for Star News, NDTV, would be applying for an uplinking license, because it might be left behind in terms of live coverage of news by rival news channel Zee News, the spokesperson said that NDTV is using VSNL's uplinking facilities and the time difference between uplinking directly form India and from Hong Kong is hardly be 2 to 3 minutes.

It can be mentioned that Star has its own uplinking hub in Clearwater Bay - Hong Kong form where it uplinks all its channels. This gives the group economies of scale as it uplinks its entire bouquet from there.

28/7/00

Sorry about the delay updateing today. There not a lot of news about anyway! This weekends feed tip is Sunday afternoon 1pm??? Sydney time Live coverage from Oran Park, Sydney of round 9 in the V8 supercar Championship, look for it on B1 or B3 Let me know if you find it! Don't forget this weekend from Friday Night , I think Sky NZ fta the Sundance channel and possibly others check them out on a normal digital receiver July28th 3pm to July 31st trial running.

Thank you for your e-mail and thanks a lot for putting us on your web page!

Right now I don't know which transponder of Optus B3 we are on. However, we
are on Aurora platform, which covers Australia & New Zealand, both requiring
nominally 85-cm dishes. I believe, we are on the same transponder that
Lashkara & Gurjari are on.

(Craigs note, Transponder 5,12352 V by the sound of it)

Yes, we are aware of the radio signal carriage possibility on Aurora, but
this would be sometime in the future. First things first! Let's build a
subscriber base first, then we would plan to enhance services to our
subscribers.

Not much to report for today. A few of the new chatrooms I tested failed badly, I will see about contacting Xoom.com and see if they can relocate us on a faster server as the delay is it contacting them and downloading the java Classes if we could host these locally it would solve the speed problems. Since not much is happening today I will get onto adding some more 300k video streams to the Broadband tv page. (Please those that have high speed connections I need feedback on this). Also I have sent out an email to Measat hopefully to get some idea of whats happening with the KU beam.

From the Dish

Thaicom 3, "DD 1 - National" has started on 3,800 V, PAL, 5,50 MHz, Asian Beam according to Lyngsat, but I think they have made a mistake I think you will find its on Thaicom 2! Not that anyone in Australia should be able to see it.

Pas 4 "Zee News" tests on 3,743 H (MPEG-2) have stopped

NEWS

Cabinet clears uplinking policy

from Indiantelevision.com

The Union Cabinet Meeting chaired by the Prime Minister on Tuesday approved the Satellite Linking policy. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mr. Pramod Mahajan stated that the uplinking policy would be placed before the Parliament today by the Information and Broadcasting minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley. Under the existing policy, broadcasting companies with a foreign equity holding of more than 20 per cent are not allowed to uplink directly for broadcasting purposes. i.e. they are not allowed to bypass the state-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

While no details were given, it is expected that it will make India an uplinking hub in the Asian regions of Singapore and Hong Kong for television channels. It will make uplinking television signals from India easier and cheaper. The decision is also likely to raise the limit of foreign equity holding to 49 per cent. The decision is expected to benefit news agencies like ANI, which use uplinking facilities from India to send feeds to various customers, including broadcasters.

The proposal to allow non-broadcasting companies to set up uplinking hubs in the country and lease out the service to interested organisations was also approved.

The proposal for the establishment of a Broadband Telecom Multimedia Corporation of the Indian Companies act, 1956 was also passed in the meeting. This will be a Government owned company with the seed capital of Rs.150 million and an authorised capital of Rs.10 billion.

The Railways have an uninterrupted right of way over 62,800 kms of railway network and have already laid an optical fibre over 2,921 kms. The objective of the new Corporation, apart from improving train control and safety, will be to create a nationwide broadband telecom and multimedia network.

Both the decisions of the cabinet are considered the stepping stone towards the broadband and convergence. The Media as well as Telecom industry stand to gain by this decision. If passed on the floor of the house the proposal is going to have deep impact on the ICE sector.

26/7/00

Live chat tonight! at 8.30pm Sydney time and at 9.30pm NZ (We need more people from NZ in the chatroom) hopefully Pacific Satellite will make it there tonight (they are the ones offering the lnbf deal above)

D.Furrows sent me an email about Zee TV suggesting they buy the NZ/Australia rights to cricket matches not involving Australia/NZ as none of the Networks or Pay companys seem to be interested in screening these. I would even sub to Zee if they showed a large amount of international cricket. I have posted Zee's response below.

For those with a fast internet connection test the broadband tv page for me. Its nowhere near finished though looks best at 800x600 and Internet Explorer Fullscreen mode , Press F11 to get fullscreenmode in IE.. Many more 300+k streams to be added!

Thank you for your e-mail, and thank you for your feed into "Satfacts".
There seem to be some holes in the information that you have from us,
primarily because you had based your information on our "press release",
which was an extract of the "media launch" we had on 18th July, in which our
CEO, Mr R K Singh, had concentrated more on the "big picture" stuff than the
finer details of our service offering. For your information, I have attached
a copy of our detailed service offering, including pricing etc.

As for the matter of cricket coverage, your suggestion is a good one and we
will certainly take it on board an raise the issue with Foxtel. Please wish
us luck. Knowing Foxtel, we are going to need it and lots of it!

Thank you for your interest in Zee, and please do keep in touch.

Best regards

Saba

Zee Network Services for Australia & New Zealand

Zee Link Pty Ltd, a member of the Zee Network Group, is proud to announce the launch of Zee Pay Channels in Australia and New Zealand catering to your entertainment needs.

Channels Available

Zee TV (No. 1 Hindi family entertainment channel and the popular programs as per Australian standard time)

This service of 6 channels is available as a DTH bouquet transmitted on the Optus B3 satellite for which you need a digital dish, digital receiver and a smart card. This equipment would be supplied and installed by us. The equipment and installation charges are $850 (including GST) for capital cities. For other cities there would be an additional cost of $45. You have the option of making the entire payment while subscribing towards this service or paying by easy finance scheme.

Easy Finance for Installation

We provide you with an easy finance scheme towards the payment of equipment and installation. In this you are required to pay $ 350 (for capital cities) and $395 (for other cities) when you subscribe to the services. The remaining amount $ 500 (including GST) can be paid in 24 monthly installments of around $ 26 per month. This finance facility is available only for subscriptions of 24 months and more.

Thanks to those that turned up in the chatroom even if it got a bit crowded at times. I am checking out a new chatroom later on today hopefully it will be more suitable and faster to get into. I did some checking into Measat on the net, it seems a few months back Microsoft invested quite a few dollars into Measat and there was mention of "interactive tv services" I don't know if its related to their beam in Australia/NZ though. Not much else to add unless I find something interesting later

A request, I need more pictures to add a bit of colour to the page, please email me anything suitable

From the Dish

Nothing to report yet

From my Emails,

this from Zee,

Currently, our subscribers have to buy the dishes and IRD's from us as we
can only use Optus approved IRD's on the Aurora platform. At the moment only
UEC700 and ADB IRD's are approved for use on Aurora platform. We have
negotiated very attractive prices from UEC and are offering a "At Cost"
"turn-key" package of supply and installation of IRD, nominally 85-cm
dishes, LnB's, mounts, cabling and commissioning etc. The cost of this
package is around $900 for the regional towns and for the Capital cities is
$850. This is supplied to our subscribers at cost to Zee Link P/L, without
any mark-up and includes Smartcard for service activation. We do intend to
offer an easy finance package for this equipment, such that the regional
town subscribers pay $395 upfront, with the balance payable over 24 months.

We are looking into the issue of existing dishes and should we be able to
find a cost effective solution to this problem, we would be happy to offer
same to our subscribers.

Spoke to Zee on their 13 number and they quoted $850 for install of dish and
receiver etc. but they were not interested in discussing a discount to this
fee if I supplied my own dish and did my own install (or in my case if I had
all of that ready to go and just needed a decoder and card so I could plug
it in and go).

They insisted that Zee was a "digital system and I needed a digital dish and
I would not already have such a dish" They claimed that the $850 fee was a
big discount anyway and the proper price is $1200 which they will start
charging after the soft launch.

I am very disappointed that they would not discuss a discount for supplying
my own dish etc. I know that there are many potential customers who have
already invested in satellite systems and at most all they need is a decoder
and maybe a KU band LNB. Additionally anyone with Austar Satellite only
needs to plug the Zee decoder into their wall socket and they are away. Zee
should recognise that their set up fee (not to mention monthly fee) is very
high and offer the appropriate discounts to people who only need a decoder.

M.B.

NEWS

Local TV content fears on hold

From theage.com.au

By JASON KOUTSOUKIS
CANBERRA
Tuesday 25 July 2000

Xena: Despite her popularity the New Zeland-made Warrior Princess has had no impact on local content.

A predicted flood of New Zealand-made programs on Australian television after the relaxation of local content rules has not materialised.

The Australian Broadcasting Authority reported yesterday that, contrary to some predictions, the nation's commercial networks did not broadcast any NZ programs in 1999.

The predictions followed a 1998 High Court ruling that Australia's Closer Economic Relations agreement with NZ provided grounds for allowing NZ television programming access to Australian content quotas.

The ABA subsequently confirmed that NZ programs could count towards Australian content quotas, prompting protests from Australian screen industry groups, which predicted that local television would be flooded by cheap NZ productions.

Industry representatives said the content changes could cripple local production. Australian Children's Television Foundation director Patricia Edgar said: "New Zealand product is much cheaper for the networks to buy ... the networks can fulfil their required quota for a fraction of the cost of buying Australian programs. And they'll jump at it."

But so far they haven't.

ABA chairman David Flint said: "Despite concerns about changes to the rules, the results for 1999 show no New Zealand programming was broadcast by the networks."

Dr Edgar was unavailable for comment yesterday. But Australian Writers Guild executive director Sue McCreedie said it was too early to tell whether Australian networks would start importing NZ programs.

"We always said it wouldn't happen overnight and it's going to be some time before we see the full impact of those changes," Ms McCreedie said.

"And we still maintain that there should be a clause in the CER agreement with New Zealand which excludes cultural and audio-visual material," she said.

A spokesman for Communications Minister Richard Alston said the government was pleased with the latest figures.

"These figures clearly demonstrate that the concerns by the industry at the time, which the government tried to allay, we now see were without foundation," he said.

"But it is the approach taken by the government that ensures that local content is delivered."

Net calls for broadcasting change
Angus Kidman

From http://www.newswire.com.au

24/07/2000 09:12 AM

Despite Friday's partial victory on the question of streaming multimedia, the Australian IT industry is calling for a major overhaul of broadcasting laws to make them more relevant to the Internet age.

As reported by Newswire, IT minister Senator Richard Alston last week announced that streaming multimedia would not be considered to be broadcasting if it is being transmitted as part of ordinary Net access. Industry figures have welcomed the decision, pointing to negative economic consequences if such a move had been made.

"This is a victory for common sense", said Rob Durie, executive director of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA). "Had the Government decided to apply the overly rigorous datacasting definitions to material 'streamed' over the Internet, this would have had significant adverse implications for the development of the Internet and related technologies in Australia, and deterred investment in the Australian IT&T industry."

However, Durie believes that the decision doesn't go far enough. "The Internet streaming issue highlights the increasing inadequacies of existing legislation in regard to the rapid converging of Internet, broadcasting and telecommunications technologies. AIIA will continue to lobby the Government to address these shortcomings", Durie said.

The Internet Industry Association (IIA), which played a critical role in defeating the streamed multimedia proposal, also wants to see a revision of local broadcasting regulations. "Our next step will be to push for a full and complete overhaul of this hopelessly antiquated [Broadcasting Services] Act," IIA executive director Peter Coroneos said. "In an era of convergent technologies, it is unbelievable that we have to operate under a regulatory regime that pretends that you can draw lines to separate one form of content from another, based purely on mode of delivery."

There seems little immediate hope for change. A spokesperson for Alston told Newswire on Friday that no changes to broadcasting laws were expected as a result of the multimedia decision, since broadcasting is a separate issue to Internet access. "That's in a completely different area," the spokesperson said.

The decision also offers little immediate hope for datacasters, which are blocked from showing streamed video under the complex genre rules which apply to all use of digital TV spectrum other than by incumbent broadcasters. Alston's spokesperson said the policy is designed to encourage the development of datacasting as a distinct and innovative service, rather than a copy of existing models. The current system has seen several players, including Fairfax, News Ltd and Telstra, withdraw from proposed datacasting trials.

24/7/00

Live chat tonight in the chatroom 8.30pm Sydney time, plenty to chat about see you there!

A man from Sky tv turned up at the door before so I got some info off them, The install is $99NZ and priceing for the basic channels is $8.29 NZ a week which gets you the basic channel package, add Sky1 (sports) and Sky 2 takes you up to $9.99 NZ a week. If you want the basic channels + movies it goes up to $12.59 a week. For $14.29 you can get all the basic channels + Sky Sport 1+2 and Sky Movies

There is an extra couple of channels Sky Movies Max (reruns at different times of Sky Movies) this channels free if you get Sky Movies, other extra channel is an arty type Films channel called Sundance which cost about and extra $1.50 per week

Theres one other deal you can get the $3.99 NZ a week Broadcast package which gives you the channels that are FTA in most parts of NZ, TV3, TV4, Mosaic (sky preview channel) The Guide (Onscreen tv Guide) Prime TV,(http://www.primetv.co.nz) and TAB Trackside (Fta raceing channel)

Why am I telling you all this, because I have had a few emails from people in Australia who are considering getting friends in NZ to install Sky and sending the box over as an alternative to the screwed up Aussie pay tv service. If your wanting to watch the All Blacks, TV3 has the games on straight after the games finished live on (Sky Sports), just a 90 minute delay..

Anyone else useing the site www.indiantelevision.com who is haveing trouble with it acceptiing your password?

Also Note news items are found via various sites on the net where possible a link to the original article is posted!

Oh and page to be trimmed tommorow!

From my Email

Hi there
i am receiving the test signals on measat 2 using a 65 cm dish signal is not very strong i suspect a bigger dish will be ok
location Adelaide South Australia

David

From Stew in Rockhampton MeasatKU on 65cm dish and borrowed .7dB LNB is ~80% on my Phoenix 222. Significantly higher than Panamsat 8 which is 60%.

This from Hans Spitaler, I have done a bit of research and come up with some great links.

Here is an article about mesh versus solid dishes http://www.drdish.com/features/mesh.html

I bet you havn't seen one of these dishes http://www.deskin.net/Isohex3_0.htm

From the Dish

Pas 8 CCTV 4 has started on 12,686 H, MPEG-2/clear, PIDs 1810/1820.

NEWS

Streaming media rules OK -- except when it doesn't
Angus Kidman

From newswire.com.au

21/07/2000 06:10 PM

The Federal Government has determined that streaming multimedia on the Internet should not be considered to be broadcasting, but the hastily announced decision has done little to clarify its confusing policy on the matter.

After coming under heavy pressure earlier this week to abandon a proposed review of streaming multimedia online which had been introduced into digital TV law at the behest of the Opposition, IT minister Senator Richard Alston this afternoon announced that streaming audio and video would not be considered as broadcasting when transmitted using normal Internet services. That decision has been welcomed by the Internet Industry Association (IIA), which has voiced industry concerns that classifying such content as broadcasting could jeopardise millions of dollars of local investment in content development.

However, the announcement contradicts many of Alston's earlier pronouncements on the issue. It also remains unclear whether the announced review meets the requirements of the government's digital TV legislation, and where it leaves aspirant datacasting companies.

Industry still cautious

The IIA was cautiously positive about the announcement. "The review has concluded within the timeframe that we considered appropriate in the circumstances," executive director Peter Coroneos said. "However, until the decision has been given legal effect, the position of our members will remain uncertain. We urge the Minister to take all necessary legal steps to exempt Internet streaming from the definition of 'broadcasting services' as he appears empowered to do under the existing legislation."

Alston's statement on the issue made it clear that he's not willing to go quite that far. The exemption has one key caveat: it does not extend to Internet access via digital television. "The decision to make it absolutely clear that Internet video and audio streaming will not be regarded as broadcasting will apply to all Internet video and audio streaming other than the broadcasting services bands which will be regulated under the recent digital television legislation," his statement noted. That content is controlled by a convoluted set of rules which dictate the length, format and genre under which any video broadcast on a datacasting service can be transmitted.

Alston's own earlier Parliamentary pronouncements on the possible scope of the streaming review did not seek to make such a distinction, but treated digital television as only part of a much broader issue. "This is a generic issue relating to the convergence of broadcasting with other services and it is therefore proposed to refer the matter to the ABA for its detailed consideration," he told the Senate on June 28. Alston also specifically commented that the matter did "not specifically relate to digital television" and said that it should not be carried out in haste.

How broad?

Other contradictions have emerged. On the same day in June, Alston told the Senate: "We need to allow a wide range of possibilities to be examined in relation to the regulation of these industries, not just the issue of whether they should be regarded as a broadcasting service." However, today Alston said: "The purpose of the government's proposed non-statutory review was merely to clarify these existing legal uncertainties, not to embark on any new policy exercises about the desirability or otherwise of defining streaming as broadcasting."

It also remains unclear whether Alston's announcement meets the requirements for a review which were contained in the original Labor amendment. Section 216E of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television and Datacasting) Bill requires that a full report of the review be issued and laid before Parliament within 15 days of completion. Parliament is currently in recess. Alston did not return calls from Newswire seeking comment.

The entire digital television policy has been driven by the government's desire to maintain a clear distinction between online services and existing television broadcasters. The Bill as it stands was pushed through Parliament to provide a six-month interval between its enactment and the launch of digital television next year. Despite this, Alston said that further amendments to the Act may be required to clarifying the legal position of streaming content.

Industry observers believe that a more thorough overhaul is needed. "Our next step will be to push for a full and complete overhaul of this hopelessly antiquated [Broadcasting Services] Act," the IIA's Coroneos said. "In an era of convergent technologies, it is unbelievable that we have to operate under a regulatory regime that pretends that you can draw lines to separate one form of content from another -- based purely on mode of delivery." However, a politically fraught move such as redefining broadcasting -- which would place the Howard government squarely against the main media moguls in the country -- seems unlikely.

Cash scramble to cut TV blackspots

from news.com.au

23jul00

ABOUT 40 Victorian councils are expected to apply for Federal Government grants to eradicate television blackspot areas where TV reception is poor.

The $35 million project is being funded from part of the sale of Telstra.
A Department of Communications spokeswoman said communities of more than 100 households with poor reception could be eligible for $25,000 grants.

A community of 500 could receive $125,000.

Applications will be assessed by local councils or community organisations registered with the Federal Government.

Poor TV reception will be judged on an international picture quality rating adopted by the Government.

Broadcast engineers and antenna and electronics technicians will have to determine if communities applying under the scheme have average TV picture quality ratings that fall within three levels.

These are: Scale 3 -- a fair picture which is "slightly annoying"; scale 2 -- poor picture which is "annoying"; and scale 1 -- a bad picture which is "very annoying".

But the highest priority will be given to areas which receive no TV services, or which receive only one channel.

The grants will go to councils or community organisations to help establish analog re-transmission sites or replace obsolete re-transmission equipment.

The spokeswoman said the scheme covered all TV channels.

The project aims to eradicate between 200 and 250 blackspot TV areas across Australia.

The Department of Communications has received complaints about poor TV reception from about 250 areas in Victoria.

The worst-affected area in the state is Healesville, but other rural areas that have made complaints include: Bemm River, Beulah, Broadford, Buxton, Corio, Hopetoun, Merrijig, Newcombe, Bendoc, Anglesea, Euroa and Mansfield.

Complaints about poor reception have also come from viewers in Melbourne CBD, Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, West Melbourne, Werribee, Berwick, Caulfield, Cheltenham, Hawthorn, Rosanna and North Dandenong.

Municipal Association of Victoria president Cr Brad Matheson said the blackspot scheme was "a very strong opportunity for regional and remote councils to apply for assistance".

"Regional and remote councils are the only administrative bodies that can deal with this sort of thing," Cr Matheson said.

"I would expect up to 35 regional and remote councils across the state to apply.

"Remote areas across the state have reception problems, notably in the high country, Gippsland and the southwest.

"There are blackspots in the inner city as well. There is room for improvement in metropolitan Melbourne."

Healesville artist Jane Hogan said she received channels 7, 9, 10 and 2, "but 10 is not good, and I can not get SBS at all".

"Channel 2 is the best, but Channel 10 is very shadowy."

Lisa Colaneri, the proprietor of the Yarra Valley pasta shop, said her TV reception had been poor until a nine-metre aerial was installed.

"It was hopeless before that. There were double lines on some channels and Channel 10 was always blurry," she said.

News makes wish upon a falling Star

Another day, another deal. Star TV's president and chief operating officer, Bruce Churchill, stands up on a podium. Cameras roll and flash and the biggest money-loser among Asia's regional television broadcasters signs away another $US45 million.

The deal, for the exclusive pay TV rights to 100 new films by one of Hong Kong's hottest movie studios, is both good news and bad news for Rupert Murdoch's Star TV, which is stuck in a vicious cycle it has spent years trying to escape: to stop losing money, it must attract viewers, but to attract viewers, it has to keep spending.

But with an estimated $US1 billion in losses and a global share offering ahead, Star TV has precious little to show for its efforts. And the outlook is grim: Star TV may never make money unless it makes fundamental changes in its business model.

News Corp bought a majority stake in Star TV from Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li in 1993 for $US525 million, buying the rest two years later for another $US300 million. At that time, the company had just five channels and broadcast mainly in English.

Seven years later, Star TV has 27 channels and broadcasts in seven languages. In the past four years, the company has lost about $US500 million ($862 million) - more if you include its money-losing joint ventures.

Now Murdoch is cashing out by injecting Star TV into newly created Sky Global Networks, a $US30 billion global satellite company that groups Star TV with other News Corp satellite properties such as Britain's sometimes-profitable BSkyB. Sky Global Networks is expected to float later this year, but so far investors have been cool.

One reason is Star TV. To turn a profit, the company will have to get viewers to pay for its programming. Just a few markets in Asia - such as India and Taiwan - account for the bulk of Star TV's subscription revenues. But those are just a small fraction, roughly 25 per cent, of the 300 million people Star TV claims it reaches. In India, the company collects about $US10 million from subscribers, but is prohibited from taking its money out of the country.

And in the mega market of China there is no sign that any pay TV broadcaster will be given access in the near future. Reckoned conservatively, Star TV gives away tens of millions of dollars of programming for free each year.

Like almost all other regional broadcasters, it has to rely on advertising for revenue, but that's not enough. Says Simon Twiston Davies, executive director at the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia: "You need to have subscriber revenues."

Take America. In the Golden Age of US television in the '50s and '60s, free broadcasts by CBS, NBC and ABC reached almost every household. The three networks accomplished this through a web of alliances among local station affiliates. The networks paid the affiliates for airing their programs, and shared some of the advertising with them. It was a finely balanced system - the affiliates got cash and programming, the networks got a countrywide reach for advertisers.

But the evolution of cable television has changed all that. Subscriptions, not advertising, drive the industry, leaving the traditional networks high and dry. Over the past five years, the networks have all seen operating profits shrink and have started to ask for money back from affiliates.

Overall, Star TV earns about 30 per cent of its revenue from subscriptions and 70 per cent from advertising. Churchill says advertising revenue still matters, but in Asia, the advertising market for television is tiny: $US13.5 billion spent on 3 billion people and 300 million television households, compared with America's $US50 billion-plus spent on just 250 million people and 100 million households.

China remains a little red book

Hong Kong: Even the greatest ambitions can be thwarted by a monumental task. And for media baron Rupert Murdoch, Asia is proving insuperable.

Murdoch's $US13 billion-a-year ($22 billion) media group, News Corp, spans the globe. But the two great aims of his recent business career - to break into China and to make money from satellite television in Asia - remain largely unfulfilled. News Corp makes no overall profit in Asia despite a decade in the region.

The troubles of News Corp's chairman tell a story of naivete and bad timing. Murdoch made his name in the West by taking over established firms in developed markets. But he pushed aggressively into unproved businesses in Asia with little understanding of the region. Now, the very things that could have been a boon to his struggling operations - the Internet and deregulation - will open Asia further to News Corp's competitors.

No-one expects News Corp to go bust over its unrealised Asia ambitions. "If you look at the scale of the investments with respect to the size of our company and the size of the opportunity I don't think it's out of line," says Bruce Churchill, chief executive of News' Asia satellite broadcaster, Star TV.

But a region that the company once billed as a major driver of its future growth looks set to remain a drag on its bottom line for several years to come, say analysts. For Murdoch, 69, it means he has made little headway in a part of the globe where he thought he could lead the information revolution.

"As an investor in News Corp, you are forever in the dilemma of being invested in a project where there is a lot of spending but you are waiting to reap the rewards," says Marcus Fanning, head of domestic equities at AMP Asset Management in Australia, which holds about 2.5 per cent of News Corp. "Asia is one of those areas that remains only a matter of potential for them."

In satellite television, News Corp has been thwarted by an overdependence on unprofitable free-to-air television and a late realisation that television, like politics, is all about local programming.

In China, by contrast, News Corp remains stifled by regulatory roadblocks thrown up by Beijing's wariness of getting too close to any Western media group. Although Murdoch's seven-year effort to gain Beijing's favour has paid off politically, his company has yet to achieve a major breakthrough in selling films or television programming.

Phoenix Satellite Television, set up in 1996 by the Hong Kong-based Star TV to focus on China, has since lost $US53 million and forecasts more losses in coming years. Its biggest advertiser, state-owned Bank of China, is a minority owner of the company, while most of its viewers - 42 million by its count, 6 million according to ratings agency CVSC-Sofres Media - don't have official approval to watch foreign satellite television.

Even indirect methods of cracking the market have failed. News Corp's 80 per cent-owned, UK-based unit, News Digital Systems Group, landed a deal in June to provide the central government's cable TV authorities with broadcast encryption software that could be rolled out to all 80 million cable TV subscribers nationwide. But despite being so close to the mother lode, News Corp's content will remain banned from those networks.

As for the Internet, News Corp's $US100 million splurge on stakes in mainland portals to sell content is fraught with risks due to Beijing's ambivalent attitude toward the Internet and particularly foreign ownership in Internet companies.

"It's just another example of how they are not getting ahead in China despite all their concessions," says an investment-bank media analyst in Hong Kong.

Murdoch first caught the China business bug with a deal to sell a handful of Twentieth Century Fox movies to the country in 1985. That led to his 1993 purchase of Star TV for $US825 million - clearly with an eye to the potential of a billion couch potatoes.

Murdoch appeared to think that media would be a cinch in places like China. In 1993 he marvelled at how modern telecommunications "have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere". Satellite television in particular, he said, "makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass State-controlled television".

Beijing responded to those unfriendly words by enforcing a ban on the reception of foreign-satellite television - a move clearly aimed at Star TV.

Murdoch then adopted a corporate strategy designed to return to Beijing's good graces. He pulled Britain's BBC news from Star TV, sold Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper to a pro-Beijing Chinese tycoon, and tore up a book contract with the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten.

The strategy worked in getting Murdoch rehabilitated in Beijing. News Corp was allowed to open a representative office in the Chinese capital last year - the only major foreign media company with that privilege - after President Jiang Zemin praised Murdoch for "presenting China objectively and cooperating with the Chinese press".

Despite this, Murdoch's business in China remains sidelined. Not only is it still largely locked out of the domestic entertainment market but it is stuck with an array of unprofitable projects. These include a joint venture in the port city of Tianjin that produces TV programs. Originally set up to broadcast an international table-tennis tournament in 1995, its operations remain "small and limited" according to Wang Yukui, a News Corp spokesman in Beijing.

The pressure on Murdoch to show a profit in China appears to be getting more intense. In February, he fired Chinese-American Gareth Chang as his comprador for China over what insiders say was Murdoch's frustration at the progress of his China interests.

Yet that has left News Corp without a top-notch manager for China. Contenders are Murdoch's youngest son and apparent successor, James, who is handling the company's satellite-television and Internet interests in other parts of Asia from Hong Kong, and the company's chief Beijing representative, Laurie Smith.

The dark horse in the succession is Murdoch's new mainland-Chinese wife, Wendi Deng, a Yale business-school graduate and former Star TV executive. While Murdoch has insisted that Deng, 33, won't be involved in News Corp, she recently told W Magazine in New York that she works on "special projects" for the company in China.

Whoever is going to take over News Corp's China business, he or she had better do it fast. With China's imminent entry into the World Trade Organisation, the scramble for its market is expected to intensify. Other major media groups such as Time Warner - which recently teamed up with Hong Kong-based China Entertainment Television to challenge Phoenix TV in China - Sony, and the family interests of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, are moving into China aggressively.

Dow Jones

23/7/00

I hope to have the pictures and details of the universal LNBF posted soon, you will need one if you want to see whatever pops up on Measat2 KU in a few weeks (running now testcards etc) send me an email if interested ( address up top), $75 is pretty cheap and if something good goes up on Measat2 in a few weeks you will be kicking yourself if you can't get hold of a lnbf!

Speaking of KU band get your dish polished and peaked up. For those in Australia nows the chance to see if you can pick up a watchable signal from Sky NZ (That might lead to other things such as subbing via a friend in NZ) I received an email telling me that next weekend Sky NZ will be running the Sundance channel FTA last time they had free trial on sky you could watch on normal digital receiver also unlocked 4 other channels that must be in same group july28th 3pm to july 31st trial running.

This from Raj via ICQ "Called the ZEE TV number you had on your site. They said the initial setup would cost $900 and then $40/month for the basic bouquet of channels. Starting 1st week August. They are posting me out some information, i'll let you know what I get." He also mentions UEC receiver so I guess for that price its dish and receiver ownership.

This from Gerry Brown

Broadcast&Broadband Asia Pacific replaces Broadcast Asia Journal

Hello - this is Gerry Brown in Hong Kong -

I am pleased to announce that from this month, Broadcast Asia Journal, the 13-year-old Singaporean-based, broadcasting publication has been renamed
"Broadcast & Broadband Asia-Pacific" with a new tabloid size and a fresh image.

The editorial is to reflect the growing impact of Internet and Broadband on broadcasting in the Asia-Pacific region.

Our magazine distribution is being refined to include more multimedia and broadband companies and the dedicated "i" and "e" departments in broadcast organisations. The 8,000+ circulation spans 40 countries and territories across Asia-Pacific. Readership at 24,000.

The coming edition, the July/August edition, the first under the Broadcast&Broadband Asia Pacific banner, focuses on:

"Broadcast"
is still at the heart of radio and TV technology,
whether it is internet, cable, satellite or terrestrial driven!

22/7/00

Zee press release is below, So far comments I have heard seem to indicate the price is ok, but this part of the release is causing some concern "The marque Zee TV channel will come to our viewers as per Australia and New Zealand prime time zone for the first time programming in their own prime time". So it sounds like Zee will be time shifted, to suit Australia / New Zealand time zones rather than a straight feed off Asiasat 3. Zee news, Cinema and Music should be straight feeds. A source of Universal LNBF's have been located if your interested in buying one at $75Aus register you interest by emailing me.

Star movies has lashed out at Zee Cinema in what seems to be a swipe in typical 'Cola war' fashion.

A commercial by Star movies starts by showing a hoarding on an office building similar in all respects to the logo used by Zee Cinema except for a small change which shows it as 'Bee Cinema'. An executive in the office of 'Bee Cinema' is shown throwing darts at a dartboard blindfolded. A voiceover tells the viewer that unlike other channels (Bee Cinema), Star Movies does not show its viewers movies they would not like to see. This is followed by the actual promo of their new website 'Your pick of the week.com' which allows Star Movies viewers to click on their favourite movies and vote them according to their preference. Star will then show these movies according to the viewer's preference in order of their popularity.

While the introduction of this scheme is commendable, Star's swipe at Zee at this juncture seems surprising. According to some inside sources Star's move stems from a desire by the Star Network to get back at Zee for what many insiders believe was Zee's hand in the controversial Channel (V) obscenity case. It is to be seen how Zee will react and whether we will be in for another war between two industry rivals.

22/7/00 Early update

More news later today.

ZEE PRESS RELEASE

Zee Network to launch services in Australia and New Zealand
World's leading Satellite Network for South Asians

Zee Network, the foremost satellite TV network for South Asians in the world, announced its plans to bring home away from home for South Asians in Australia and New Zealand, by soft launch of its bouquet of satellite channels from August 1st, 2000. Announcing this at a press conference held in Sydney, the CEO of Zee Telefilms Ltd. Mr. R K Singh said, "Zee Network has always endeavoured to bring entertainment, information and happenings in the sub-continent for the South Asian viewers across the globe. Digital technology enables a wider choice and Zee is happy to invest substantially in serving South Asians in Australia and New Zealand with its bouquet of channels that deliver Hindi entertainment, Bollywood, South Asian music, news and rich cultural fare and entertainment from Punjab, Gujarat and Bengal. It is for the first time that Zee Network is delivering such a large bouquet of channels in an overseas market. Truly this is a compliment to the multi cultural ethos of Australia and New Zealand. With the launch of these services the South Asian communities will get linked to South Asians across the globe."

Present at a distinguished gathering on the occasion of the launch press conference were, His Excellency The Indian High Commissioner, The Consul General of Pakistan in Sydney and the Consul General of India in Sydney were also kind enough to grace the occasion. Present on the occasion were also the representatives of various community organisations. Mr. Of C & W Optus, the satellite platform provider were also present.

His Excellency, Mr. C P Ravidranathan inaugurated the media launch of the Zee Network services by lighting the auspicious lamp in a traditional ceremony. Mr. Ravindranathan said that the Indian community in Australia and New Zealand is increasingly becoming an important facet of the rich cultural mix of this great country. The rich traditions, values of India and the Sub Continent will, with the launch of Zee Network satellite services, bring home closer to community as well as help augment the cultural mix of this multi-racial and dynamic society.

The Zee bouquet of channels will have its soft launch on the 1st of August 2000, with formal launch on the eve of Independence of India and Pakistan. The bouquet comprises

These channels will be available on the Aurora platform, on the hotbird of Oceania Optus B3 satellite. The marque Zee TV channel will come to our viewers as per Australia and New Zealand prime time zone for the first time programming in their own prime time.

The subscribers to the service would be able to receive the programs of this bouquet through a small size dish (nominally 85cm) and an Integrated Receiver Decoder capable of conditional access interface with the Aurora platform conditional access and subscriber management systems.

Zee Link, the marketing subsidiary of Zee Network will arrange distribution through its authorised contractors a complete package for the installation of the equipment including cabling with option of easy financing.

The subscription marketing will be through a central call centre number 133 036. The subscribers to the service will have the option for signing up the contract to receive the services for a period of 12 months to 24 months. The subscription fees for the basic package will be A$35 + GST per month, while for the add-on channels the subscription fee for 24 hr transmission channel will be A$5 + GST and for the 12 hr transmission channel will be A$3 + GST.

21/7/00

Not a lot around today, No sign of Zee's announcment.I am beginning to think they might of postponed it as I have seen nothing about it.

MRTV 3666H Digital has left Thaicom 3, it remains on 3685H Analog NTSC

Gorizont 25 has completed its journey to140E (Keep and eye out for new signals)

Possible Feeds this weekend

Saturday 22nd

12.30pm Rugby NZ vs South Africa (live on Sky NZ, not likely to be fta anywhere)

2pm Syd AFL

2.15pm Syd NRL Broncos vs Warriors (Mediasat ?)

7.30pm Syd NRL Panthers vs Eagles (Mediasat ?)

9.30pm Syd Golf British Open (reports needed of this popular event)

Sunday 23rd

3.00am Syd Tennis Davis Cup Spain vs U.S.A (try pas 2 fox feeds)

5.30am Nascar raceing

2.pm AFL

2.30pm Syd NRL Tigers vs Knights

9.00pm Syd Golf British Open

9.55pm Syd World 500cc Motorcycles live from Germany

NEWS

Austar defends remote connection quote
15:28 Thursday 20 July 2000
AAP
PAY television provider Austar today defended a quote of $27,000 to install a satellite dish in northern Queensland, saying pay TV was not a community service.
Richmond locals are outraged at the connection cost and state Mines and Energy Minister Tony McGrady called for an inquiry, saying many country towns would face similar costs.

"Twenty-seven thousand for a rural community to get cable television is an outrage,'' he told ABC radio.

"I just feel that the federal authorities should move in immediately and question whether these people are fit and proper to hold the licence which they do.''

Austar corporate affairs manager Bruce Meagher said customers also had a choice of paying $800 for a lower-quality dish but the options were not properly explained to the Richmond residents.

"Now that's a mistake and we accept that that's a mistake, but it doesn't mean that people have to spend $27,000 for the service, they don't. It's just a mistake at the call centre,'' he said.

Meagher said the standard 65cm satellite dish only worked in coastal areas with broadband network access and the company had to cover its costs.

But a 3.5m dish like the one suggested for Richmond would cover the whole town, and Austar would fund the infrastructure if enough people were interested in signing up.

"In some places where the towns are large enough to economically support the service and our microwave tower, which itself costs $500,000 to construct, we use that,'' he said.

"If a community isn't perhaps large enough to justify that from our point of view we would certainly talk to them about other ways of dealing with it ... remembering pay TV is not a lifeline service, it's still a bit of discretionary entertainment and luxury service.''

Meagher said communities did not have a right to pay television services the way they did for telephone connections.

"Pay TV is not part of the universal service obligation and if it was, people would be outraged ... there are a whole lot of things that you would want to be subsidising before you are subsidising pay TV,'' he said.

20/7/00

Not much news around, except theres quite a rush on for Universal KU LNBs it seems not many people have them other than those with Canal+. If your a dealer with a good price on them I will publish your advert FREE. Send me the details! reports on Measat 2 KU are still needed!

Still no sign of a media announcement from Zee ?

From my Email

Thanks to those that sent the updated site for Kristals website its now been updated on the links page

From The Dish

Pas 8 CNN Financial Network 12726H , Went Encrypted (Nagravision)

Asiasat 2 A new EBU channel has appeared (Encrypted) on 3945 V, SR 6110, FEC 3/4.this will be in preperaton for the Games feeds. Also Australian KU reception of Asiasat has been seen according to Satfacts check 12456H for CCTV4 Analog NTSC, got a 5M solid? start checking those other KU freqs , send in your reports of failures or success

Pas 4 VH1 Music has left 3743H

NEWS

Alston recants on net TV
www.news.com.au

By FINOLA BURKE

20jul00

CALL it a backdown or call it backtracking
but Communications Minister Richard Alston
yesterday signalled he did not want to ban
the internet industry from "streaming" video
into Australian homes.

After a fortnight of intense pressure from
internet heavyweights who said $2 billion of
investment was threatened by
heavy-handed regulation, Senator Alston
told The Australian he wanted the issue
dealt with "in a matter of weeks rather than
months".

"So I certainly want to get on with it,"
Senator Alston said. "Certainly the last thing
we want to do is cramp the style of the
internet. We want to see as much as
possible made available as widely as
possible."

It was the first time Senator Alston has
acknowledged that any moves to restrict
video or audio streaming may limit development of the internet. And it indicated
the minister does not want an Australian Broadcasting Authority review of the
issue to stretch, as was feared by the industry, over one or even two years.

It is a marked difference from the federal Government's heavy regulation of the
broadcast spectrum to protect the existing free-to-air television broadcasters, led
by Kerry Packer's Nine Network.

Unlike the broadcasters, the new breed of "datacasters" will be banned from
delivering moving pictures in a wide range of genres, including news, sport, drama
and comedy over the digital television from January next year.

It is now understood the Government does not intend to apply the same
restrictions to the internet as Parliament has to datacasting.

Yesterday, Senator Alston blamed the Labor Party for forcing the ABA review into
the datacasting legislation on to the Government.

"I must say I think a lot of these fears are essentially based on something that
was imposed on the Government, that it didn't want and that it's got to try and
resolve as quickly as possible," he said.

Senator Alston was speaking after the launch of Dubsat, a new satellite-based
internet system for delivering television commercials to the country's 43
commercial television stations.

Several industry executives pointed out yesterday that Dubsat's service, which is
set to revolutionise digital advertising, could, theoretically, fall under any
restrictions applied to streaming video.

The change of heart, however, appears to have happened on Tuesday night after
Senator Alston met with the Internet Industry Association, which numbers
Microsoft and Telstra among its members.

Executive director Peter Coroneos said yesterday the minister should now be
under no "misapprehension about the confidence destroying nature this whole
issue has caused" and had "agreed to accelerate the review".

Mr Coroneos said if the Government decides that streaming on the internet should
be subject to the Broadcasting Services Act, the IIA wanted to make sure that
those laws were waived.

"The consequences will be movement offshore and winding back of investment,"he said.

19/7/00

Live chat tonight at 8.30pm Sydney time and chat will also start at 9.30pm if anyone from NZ turns up. Still no sign of Zee's media release Reports are needed of Measats KU band reception please send to my email address and make a cc: to Skyking@clear.net.nz. You will need a Universal LNB for Measats KU band, Don't have one? you should be able to buy one for around $100 Aus. The big question, who is going to be useing this new beam? Something to do with the games perhaps? added my Fax number please no voice calls to this line. Dealers / Media feel free to fax your info to me. P.O Box address to be added later. Does anyone know the address of Kristals website?

Dealers contact me if you want to put an advert on the page 150+ hits a day to your target market..

I have archived some of the older news. You can find it on the History page (see above)

From my email

"Siam Global" reports FINALLY TRIED VH1(Pas 4) LAST NIGHT ALSO. STILL FTA BUT.... AND A BIG BUT..... ALL THE AUDIO CHANNELS ON ALL THE FREQUENCIES REPLACED BY A SIMPLE ANNOUNCEMENT SO NO MUSIC. HAVEN'T CHECKED THE AUDIO TODAY.

"Pitts" is looking for a some circuit schematics for his dead Echostar SR8700 if you can help email him pittas@bigpond.com

From the Dish

Satfacts reports Measat at 148E testing a KU beam

Reception should be possible in most parts of Australia and the Pacific includeing NZ. Viewers in NSW are in luck reception there may be even possible on dishs smaller than 45cm! (Yes the old LNB to garbage can lid may even manage it)

Look for programming there on 11540 H with Mediasats Optus B3 bouqet, use the following settings

Ted Gregory: about $10 million had been spent in television stations throughout Australia developing Dubsat, a potential business-to-business Internet company that has emerged from an idea to deliver advertising to television stations via satellite.

A potential business-to-business Internet company has emerged from an idea to deliver advertising to television stations via satellite.

The company, DubSat, was created by its owners, the post-production houses AAV Australia, OmniLab (partly owned by the publicly listed Television & Media Services) and ComCopy (part of the listed Isis Communications group).

DubSat chairman and AAV managing director Ted Gregory said about $10 million had been spent developing the software and installing video servers in television stations throughout Australia.

The business was spawned from an idea to replace the current system of sending commercials to stations via couriers or through expensive fibre optic cables with a satellite delivery system.

Mr Gregory said other business-to-business applications were now developing.

"DubSat has the potential to provide a lot of other services beyond its launch product," he said.

"We have had some chats with people who may want to have video material delivered from point to multi-point locations, and that's something DubSat will no doubt move into over time."

When television started in 1956, advertisements were sent on film prints to TV stations, and from the early '70s, they were distributed on analogue video tapes.

"They were distributed around Australia by air and road freight, which could take up to 16 hours to get to every TV station," he said.

Under the DubSat system, post-production houses send the commercial to DubSat's bureaus in Sydney or Melbourne where it is digitally encoded and sent to the stations via satellite within an hour.

Unlike the current system, DubSat has created an intranet communications system so TV stations know which commercials are due and when they have arrived. "The advertising agency has to know when a commercial has arrived as they are booking air time," Mr Gregory said.

He said the new system would be more cost-efficient over time, but to send one commercial via satellite would initially cost $35 per advertisement, versus between $20 and $25 for freighting. He said use of fibre optic cable would make DubSat more cost-effective.

He said similar satellite systems operated in the United States, but without the communications backbone.

The Pay TV conundrum
from www.indiantelevision.com

When hefty cable and satellite penetration numbers were reported about the Indian cable and satellite market as little as five years ago, there was a mad scramble to enter what was then considered a potential goldmine. But wannabe broadcasters discovered that they were actually digging for fools' gold. There was lots of hype, little substance.

Five years, on the hype has once again starting gathering pace. The cable and satellite television industry has been consolidating. International television channels are once again making a beeline for it, existing channels are digitising and encrypting, while analysts have turned euphoric about its potential. Existing numbers however still don't offer substantial support.

In terms of critical mass, India's cable industry is second only to China in the Asia-Pacific. Indiantelevision.com estimates that India has around 28 million cable homes. And the numbers are rising by the day as more homes buy new TVs or a second one.

However, encryption is only up to the cable TV headend. Cable ops descramble the digitised signals and pass them on in a wholesale manner to all their subscribers. This is thanks to the last mile problem and the absence of a return path in more than 70 per cent of Indian cable TV networks. Additionally, addressable boxes have yet to make their way into subscriber homes.

Some stray efforts have been made to bring cable TV networks up to scratch. Some systems have gone up to 750 MHz bandwidth. But mostly cable TV MSOs have shouted from the rooftops that they are upgrading their networks to a fibre optic backbone. The shouting has been just that: shouting with little action.

As against this, the average per home cable TV subscription charge is on the upper side at Rs 100, giving a total of about Rs 2,000 million (for 20 million paying homes) a month, totting up to about Rs 2,400 million per annum for the entire industry. "Three years ago pay TV was a bad and untouchable word," says ESPN-Star Sports managing director Manu Sawhney, "Then there was a grudging acceptance, today it is a reality ...everyone accepts it as a concept."

He, however, says there is a major problem plaguing the industry in that all the players have done little to expand the subscription channel pie. "We have all tried to retain our shares rather than increase the size of the pie. We have not spoken in one voice." In recent times however Star TV has started an ad campaign exhorting cable operators and consumers on the need for subscription television. "We are building the background for pay TV. In the next stage we will start advertising a maximum retail price like most other consumer industries do," says Star TV executive vice-president Arun Mohan.

The Star TV exercise will help, but it seems more like a rearguard action to help protect the hike in basic subscription levies that the network levied on cable operators when it priced its channel packages at between Rs 17.50 and Rs 22 recently. Star TV is likely to
have a bouquet of some 16 channels and has recently inked agreements with production house UTV to provide content for its health and education channel.

Ranged against it is the leader in the Indian market Zee Telefilms which has just started its digital package rollout and has priced its bouquet at a cut throat price of Rs 11. It is undercutting Star TV on the sticker price of the digital set top box too by pricing it at Rs 2,000 as against the Rs 5,000 or so levied by Star TV.

The strategy has led to a major duel in the market with some cable operators hurt by Star TV's aggressiveness in the past even dropping some Star channels. "It's a very strong play by Zee TV," says an observer. "And in the short term it is going to hurt Star." Zee is keen on cobbling together an 18 channel bouquet in the medium term.

The third player in the digital pay TV sweepstakes is Sony Entertainment Television which is cobbling together its channel package. AXN, Set Max, CNBC India (it has just got TV 18 board clearance to take a 20 per cent stake in the channel) , and of course SET. It is believed to be in the running to get in Disney into India (as is Star). Talks are on with a gaggle of other channels including Discovery, Animal Planet, The History Channel.

The fourth player which is showing signs of aggression is B4U which is cobbling together a bouquet of channels consisting of B4U, MCM, Fashion TV, and B4U Movies. Distribution will be outsourced to the Satellite Management Group, which is a distribution company set up specifically for that purpose.

DD's channels which the government is likely to mandate carriage goes to make up the fifth bouquet. The final bouquet is likely to be the channels which chose to be not associated with any of the other bouquets and could include channels such as BBC World, CNN, Cartoon Network, HBO (these three channels are being distributed by Turner International India), Deutschewelle TV, TV5, Arirang TV, Hallmark, Kermit, Prabhat, Sahara TV, among several others. The fact that there are independent channels has led to the increasing importance of distribution companies such as Modi Entertainment Network (the pioneers), CAT Vision, the Satellite Management Group. Each of these firms will have a group of independent channels which it will bundle together for a package. "There's place for just three -four digital bouquets in the Indian market" says Sony Entertainment COO Rajesh Pant. "We intend to be at the forefront."

Sawhney says the move towards pay TV will not be easy because of the disparity in the infrastructure nationally from region to region. "You have to have a different way of managing pay TV in the rural market, which consists of around 8.4 million homes," he points out. "The market is too price sensitive there. So while you can totally encrypt and charge a high price for urban areas how will you cope with disgruntlement for the remainder of the populace in semi-urban and rural areas."

IndusInd Entertainment COO Ashok Mansukhani says the government should find a way to regulate pay channels through the consumer set top box regime. "It's a crisis situation for the MSOs," he says. "We are today giving away more than Rs 60 of the Rs 100 we collect from subscribers for various pay TV services."

Pant believes mandating or regulation will prove detrimental to the cable TV industry. "Cable TV has grown in the absence of regulation. Let India follow the Taiwan model and leave it to market forces," he says. He sees a scenario where pay TV revenues will end up being equal to advertising revenues. "This has to happen as the ad market is not growing rapidly enough," he says. "However," says Sawhney "there are no easy solutions to get us there. The pay TV industry like water in a glass will take shape as it has to."

18/7/00

There was some very important information added late last night info on a Legislation that threatens the FTA satellite industry (Australia). It gets worse not only are they trying to legislate satellite receivers with CI they are attempting also to legislate streaming media in Australia so companies like www.network33.com will not be able to start up in Australia offering Pay TV channels over the Internet. No sign of the Zee announcement at this time.It will go up as soon as I find it.

From the Dish

Pas 4 3743 Zee News has been testing here, B4u Music and VH1 UK are still FTA

From my emails

Today is the day that Zee said they would do a news release.
I note that today, on Optus B3 @ 09.30AM NSW Australia, that channel BTV1 on
Aurora platform is displaying an Optus BOC testcard, with the words Zee
Network Australia on the information panel. May be something coming on there
today re their product.
Regards
John

NEWS

Streaming review "ill-conceived" and "insane"
www.newswire.com.au

Angus Kidman

17/07/2000 01:40 PM

The Internet Industry Association (IIA) has launched a bitter attack on government plans to legislate streaming multimedia.

"The review is ill-conceived, unnecessary and highly damaging to business confidence," IIA executive director Peter Coroneos said in a statement today. "As such, it should not proceed. We will be urging the Minister to introduce legislation in the next session of parliament to kill this off before the damage to industry confidence and investment becomes irreparable. This is not just an issue of timing. While bringing the review forward might reduce the damage, it is only a half measure. The review which should not have occurred in the first place. There is only one acceptable outcome here and that is to get rid of it now."

The Federal Government fast-tracked plans for a review of streaming multimedia by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) in late June. Given the government's determination to block any competition to existing pay TV broadcasters, it is widely feared that restrictions will be placed on streaming content within Australia. The IIA will present its concerns to IT minister Richard Alston at a meeting in Canberra tomorrow.

Like previous government plans to block adult material and gambling sites, any streaming restrictions would be limited in their effect to local operators, as the government has no control over international site operators. "In international terms, what is happening now in Australia is unprecedented," Coroneos commented. "In domestic terms, it is insanity," he said.

"If video and audio streaming will be found to be broadcasting only the free to air broadcasters will be able to deliver the most compelling broadband content over the Net -- given the government's moratorium on broadcasting licences they will be handed free of charge a statutory monopoly for six more years. What an extremely valuable asset a broadcasting licence would be then. It's almost 'buy one, get one free'."

"Our members are deeply cynical and suspicious of the government's motives," Coroneos added. "Everyone knows that the Internet is not broadcasting, it is point-to-point. So why would a government hold an inquiry to prove what is common knowledge, unless it had other plans?"

India to Allow Direct Uplinks

/Satnews Asia/ -- The Satellite TV fever has caught on India and spreading very fast in this region. India?s government has decided to allow satellite broadcasters to uplink directly from the country. Permission will be granted to Indian television companies and news agencies which are 100 percent Indian-owned, along with foreign television companies which have an Indian, or a non-resident Indian, owning at least 60 percent of the shares in the company. Private satellite channels have been demanding direct uplinking from India for the last few months.

The high-level Group of Ministers (GOM) committee will allow Indian news agencies with Indian management control to uplink directly to a satellite bypassing facilities offered by state-owned gatekeeper Videsh Sanchar Nigam. Recently, the GOM allowed non-broadcast companies to set up uplink hubs in India, and lease the service to broadcasters and others.

In India, Doordharshan is the only organization offering satellite TV services with local uplinking. Prior to the announcement, no private companies were uplinking from India. Due to policy restrictions, a number of services had to operate their bases at neighboring countries. DTH (Direct to Home) services are also not available in India. The recent announcement of the new broadcasting policy by the Indian government is expected to open new opportunities for companies to uplink from the country.
While Doordharsan (Government owned) offers an International channel (DD3) and a number of regional language channels, private broadcasters are providing a number of channels in Hindi (national language) as well as regional languages. International companies like Star TV, BBC and CNN are providing their satellite services tuned to India. Though these channels are basically English channels, they have started provided local contents and language programs.

Piracy of Satellite Signals on the Rise in Asia

Satnews Asia/ -- According to CASBAA (Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia), piracy of satellite signals is escalating in The Philippines, Thailand and India.

The association identified the countries, together with member Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major Hollywood studios. To tackle the problem, CASBAA has already de-activated the decoders of illegal cable systems in the Philippines and the channels withdrawn from pirate cable systems include AXN, Discovery Asia, Animal Planet, Hallmark and Nickelodeon.

CASBAA is taking a serious view of satellite piracy and it has set aside funds to ?undertake prosecutions to the fullest extent permissible in several market?. International channels such as HBO face increasing problems with piracy. According to the movie channel, a growing number of satellite decoders, reportedly from countries with direct-to-home systems, were smuggled and sold in the Philippines. These decoders are said to be capable of receiving, across international borders, satellite signals of pay-TV channels such as HBO, Cinemax, Discovery, ESPN and MTV. These satellite signal decoders operated by illegal cable systems in the Philippines have been deactivated as part of a "fingerprinting" exercise.

Among cable operators suffering from disabled and de-authorized channels were the Fil Products systems in Dumaguete and Butuan. Among the channels withdrawn from distribution to the pirate cable systems were AXN, Discovery Asia, Animal Planet, Hallmark and Nickelodeon.

"Fingerprinting" enables a channel supplier to identify a "rogue" domestic set-top box that has strayed outside of its licensed market and for the channel supplier to subsequently disconnect the set top.

"This is just the start of a long-term CASBAA campaign to bring home to pay-TV operators and others the damage that intellectual property theft can do to all parties concerned with the legal distribution of multichannel television and datacast services," said Simon Twiston Davies, the Executive Director of CASBAA.

"In some markets the problem is reaching crisis proportions, not only having a significant impact on the channel suppliers but also on legally licensed and operated cable systems, equipment suppliers and conditional access suppliers."

The CASBAA Legal Committee, working with CASBAA member the Motion Picture Association of America -- which in turn represents the major Hollywood Studios -- has identified three Asian markets where signal piracy is escalating: The Philippines, Thailand and its neighbouring countries, and India.

"The Association will undertake and support new initiatives to protect member company intellectual property rights wherever possible," said Mr Twiston Davies. "As part of our anti-piracy activities significant funding has been set aside to undertake prosecutions to the fullest extent permissible in several markets."

Skystream Gets China CETV Contract

Satnews Asia/ -- SkyStream Networks announced that China Education Television (CETV) has selected its networking equipment as the primary broadcast networking technology for a nationwide infrastructure that will deliver multimedia-rich Internet content and video to students and teachers throughout the People's Republic of China.

Using SkyStream's DBN-26 Source Media Routers (SMRs) integrated with Lucent Technologies' WaveStar DVS MPEG-2 Digital Video System, IBM's storage and media management system, and France Telecom's ViAccess conditional access system, CETV will offer integrated Internet and television programming to improve training for teachers and ensure that students from primary schools to universities -- in even the most remote regions of the country -- access high-quality education.

The content encoded includes university courses, business training and skills training for teachers. Within the next three years, students will be able to access CETV content at one of the 800,000 schools that will be equipped with a satellite receiving system. In addition, the Chinese Ministry of Education plans to use SkyStream equipment to provide CETV content to local cable systems in major cities through digital cable services.

As a result of the deal, CETV is positioned to expand its offerings in the future to offer an interactive approach to learning for populations in metropolitan cities or rural areas. The broadcast network will offer educational content ranging from streaming video of educational lectures to agriculture and environment protection training.

"SkyStream's technology enables the government's distance-learning infrastructure to transmit multimedia-rich educational content by multicasting it to millions of students around the country," said Zhang Tian Lin, vice president and chief engineer of CETV. "SkyStream's SMRs make it possible for us to create an efficient broadcast network infrastructure for delivering educational streaming video, audio and Internet Web pages to remote classrooms across China."

Sino-i.com to Spend US$51m, Hire 800 for pay TV Service

Satnews Asia/ -- Sino-i.com Ltd will spend HK$400 million (US$51.3 million) to HK$500 million and hire 800 people to set up a Hong Kong pay TV service for which it won a license last week, the South China Morning Post reported.

Sino-i's pay service, Hong Kong Network Television Ltd, intends to provide 40 channels this year, increasing to 65 channels in the second year, according to the report, citing Sino-i.com chief operating officer John Shum Kin-fun.

While the broadcaster will use Hutchison Global Crossing Ltd.'s broadband fiber optic network for most of its distribution, it will use other networks if they're available, the paper said. Its agreement with the telecommunications company is not exclusive.

The government awarded five pay TV licenses on Tuesday to companies that promised to operate 149 channels. Apart from Sino-i, units of Television Broadcasts Ltd and News Corp's Satellite Television Asian Region Ltd won licenses.

17/7/00 2nd UPDATE

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ the following article reposted from Satfacts website with permission

The present Australian Government has obtained initial House approval for new legislation which on the surface is a significant threat to the free to air satellite television industry. "Copyright Amendment - 1999 / digital agenda" contains language which could be interpreted to prohibit the sale of digital IRDs which have the in-built capability to accept a separately provided smart card for authorisation of pay-TV.

The law seeks to clarify the marketing of "pay TV broadcast decoding devices" as well as "computer programs designed to be adapted to enable a person to gain access to an encoded broadcast without the authorisation of the subscription broadcaster." The intent is to stop trafficking in piracy cards and computer software which emulates authorised cards (see SatFACTS for July 15, p. 20).
What is not clear is the intent of the law crafters as the law might apply to the importation and sale of CI version digital receivers. The language defines the sale of a decoding device by referencing "facilitating the circumvention" (of authorised pay TV reception). "Facilitating" is defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary as, "make easy or less difficult or more easily achieved."
What is worrying here is that this could be interpreted to include anyone who (imports and) sells a digital IRD which has the built-in capability of accepting a smart card. If, for example, all CI capable receivers were "banned" (except those imported for the exclusive use of the pay-TV programmers), would it not follow that the "law has worked" simply because without a CI capable receiver, a smart card (whether authorised or not) could not be employed to gain access to the pay-TV programming?
Actually, no. As SatFACTS for July 15th reports (p. 20), the latest "piracy trick" involves a receiver with no smart card, and, the CAM disabled. In other words, as SatFACTS tells us, by using the RS232 port on a receiver and disabling the CAM slot, adding a PC with software which emulates the decryption routine, the hacker gains access to services through the RS232 receiver port..
Leon Senior of Satech points out that the real problem here is that pay-TV programmers have failed to create a hack-proof conditional access system. He suggests the law now being considered is for the benefit of the programmers who simply will not or have not adopted a hack-proof system. He further spoofs that if Hoyt Cinema built a theatre building with glass walls and then found people lined up outside with their noses pressed to the glass panes watching the movie without paying, that rather than closing off the glass walls, Hoyts went to Government and asked for additional police protection to arrest those people who have their noses pressed to the window. Amusing but perhaps not on point.
The reality is that we have built a free to air satellite television industry against all odds in Australia (and New Zealand, the Pacific). It is a small industry, it is not well organised, and we are often painted with the same brush that paints pirates simply because the pay-TV firms would rather we did not exist. We are called something most of us are not (pirates) simply because we offer commercial alternatives to mandatory pay-TV services.
But because we are small, with most distributors seldom selling more than 200 of a single model of digital receiver per month, the receivers we purchase from Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere are NOT designed for OUR purposes - they are designed for the much larger European and Asian markets. We have no input as to the design of these receivers ( well, very little input) and as any distributor/importer will tell you, the models we receive are for someplace else - not designed for "here."
This creates a unique situation. Virtually all receiver manufacturers are now reserving their best features for the CI version receivers. Yes, there are still non-CI digital receivers but the trend is away from such models except at very low price entry levels. In other words, if "facilitating the circumvention" of pay-TV conditional access is held to include the importation and sale of receivers with CI (CAM imbedded/ Common Interface) capabilities, the choice and selection of receivers available for Australia will become significantly smaller. This would in a short period of time eliminate Australia as a desirable market for the Asian receiver suppliers, and very directly injure the struggling FTA (free to air) industry here.
Does a shop that sells hunting rifles and pistols "facilitate" the commission of a crime if a gun sold is ultimately used for a hold up? Does an automobile dealer selling a 200 km/h capable vehicle "facilitate" the breaking of the speed laws? Does a kitchen shop selling a 10 inch butcher knife "facilitate" the murder of a husband by an irate wife? More to the point, whereas every part one needs to build their own PIC-device piracy CAM to bust pay-TV is available from hundreds of electronic parts houses, including better equipped Dick Smith Electronics, are they "facilitating" the crime of breaking into pay-TV without paying???
Does this mean that Nationwide, when selling a UEC receiver for Aurora, can be held for "facilitating" the use of that receiver for unauthorised reception from Foxtel or Austar if the buyer elects to insert a piracy card, CAM or connect his or her PC to the receiver for card-less viewing? In other words, if CI or CAM equipped receivers are to be illegal because they "MIGHT facilitate" piracy viewing, is the seller of the CI or CAM receiver - even for Aurora - to be held responsible? If Satech is held responsible for selling a Strong CI equipped receiver, should not Nationwide also be held responsible for selling a UEC CAM equipped receiver?
SPACE Pacific took these questions and more to Ms Annabelle Herd, an attorney attached to the office of Senator Allston (tel 03-9650-0233) who's Ministry is responsible for this legislation. Ms Herd told us that the law attempts to differentiate between "primary purpose" of a device and "secondary uses." "A computer, for example, is not sold for the sole purpose of breaking a pay-TV firm's encryption system. It has other uses, and if a computer buyer decides to use his PC for breaking pay-TV, that is not a reason to go back on the seller of the PC." We asked her whether someone selling parts, through Dick Smith Electronics or another electronic supplier, that allows the construction of a PIC-type device which in turn becomes a pay-TV piracy item, should be included in the dragnet for "facilitating the circumvention" of pay TV? "No, and for the same reason. Parts sold can be used for a wide variety of purposes, and it is unreasonable to expect the seller to know what the buyer intends to do with them."
"How, then" we asked "can a digital satellite receiver which is designed for free to air AND pay-TV purposes be deemed a 'facilitator' of pay TV piracy?" Her response - "perhaps this needs to be looked at, more closely, but at this point I cannot give you my assurance that it would not be deemed to be a facilitator. It may turn on whether free to air or pay TV is the PRIMARY purpose for the receiver."
Meanwhile, a group called "The Australian Film and Video Security Office" has been visiting dish dealers. A man identified as Bill Taylor, by his business card, claiming to represent the
audio and video anti piracy board, told a dealer visited on July 17th, "We know you are selling receivers here which are being used for piracy purposes." The receivers he so identified come from Skyvision and Benjamin according to Taylor's comments. "Receivers capable of accepting a (pay TV) smart card are likely to end up in the hands of a pirate" Taylor lectured the dealer. "These receivers (mentioning brand names) are not approved for Australian pay TV and we consider them to be illegal." The dealer asked why he was being visited. "Because your name appears here" he was told, as Taylor pulled out pages of transcripts dating back to the Rolf Deubel (Mad Max) case. "We have proof here you had correspondence with this man so we know you have an interest in piracy." Yes - the laptop PC hard drive Deubel lost to the Thailand authorities, as reported in SatFACTS last November and December, has now been transcribed and pages of e-mails are in the hands of Taylor and his assistants.
This encounter coming as it does so close to the proposed adoption of new legislation identifying "facilitators" of piracy is hardly a coincidence. Even if Annabelle Herd is not sure whether a "facilitator" would include a CI/CAM receiver, the Australia Film and Video Security Office has apparently already made up their mind - or been told what to think by the pay-TV operators.
Here is how we interpret events up to this point:
1) The pay-TV folks want all sale of receivers which have the ability to be used by pirates stopped; they do not care whom they hurt in this process.
2) The Australian Film and Video Security Office is gathering evidence from the field, they appear to have already made up their minds, doubtless for the purpose of selecting some "examples" for prosecution as soon as this pending legislation becomes law.
Status:
This law was drafted in 1999, has been through initial reading and approval by the House. When Parliament reconvenes in mid-August, it is likely at this time the bill will get fast track treatment for passage in the Senate. The legislation has the backing of both major political parties and at this point is unlikely to encounter resistance in the Senate.
Ms Annabelle Herd on the time remaining. "If there are valid concerns and real arguments concerning aspects of this legislation which may have been overlooked, there is at most two weeks to get changes made. We were very careful in crafting the legislation and we believe the words chosen would ensure that no innocent business man or individual would be hurt. If, in fact, we are wrong, the reasons why we are wrong need to be filed immediately."

There are very few days remaining to have an impact on this legislation. You can check the status yourself by the following:
1) Enter http://www.aph.gov.au/legis.htm
2) Click on Current Bills
3) Click on Copyright Amendment (digital agenda)
4) Click on text bill
5) Click on PDF and check out pages 30 to 35, or Acrobat pages 34 - 39
Also click on and read the various statements made by members of the House which appear on the same page as "text bill."
Because the House bill (now adopted) had the support of Government and Labour, it is likely the Senate version will have the same broad support. This means it does not matter who your Senator sits with - if you can catch his or her ear on this matter, regardless of where he or she is in Government, there is an opportunity to have the bill modified to clarify the "facilitator" question.
If you wish to discuss the matter further, we believe you will find Ms Annabelle Herd very receptive to at least hear your concerns. Further, she will accept written comments as well. If you file written comments with your own Senator, also send a copy to Ms Herd. Her numbers are (tel) 03-9650 0233 and (fax) 03-9650 0220.

Task force:
The following distributors are battling on behalf of the industry to have this legislation modified to protect us from disaster:
1) Jacob Keness, MediaStar as Opac@bigpond.com
2) Leon Senior, Satech as satellite@satech.com.au
We will post other distributors and dealers here as supporters of change - to be listed, send us via fax (64-9-406-1083) a copy of any comments you file with Annabelle Herd or send us an e-mail reporting in detail on contacts you have with Senators or their staffs on this issue. If your distributor is not working on this, make them aware of what is happening and urge them to join the battle.
(Posted July 17, 2000)

17/7/00

Live chat tonight in the chatroom 8.30pm Sydney time. A new edition of CSAT online satellite magazine is out (Volume 13) click on the Csat logo up the top of the page to load it up although its contents are rather disapointing and out of date. Hopefully tommorow afternoon when I do the site update there should be some news of Zee's services to Australia/NZ. URL for Handan/Pheonix has been corrected.

Have you noticed a new FTA channel in the CNBC Bouquet on PAS 8 ?
It is called Nikkei CNBC and has different programming to the other regional
CNBCs.

(Craigs note, sounds like its a feed for Japan)

Mixo (Who loves his Greek tv) send the following he received in his email

Dear Customer

You may be aware that Austar has announced its intention to make a takeover
offer for eisa Limited, the provider of your internet service. I would like
to take this opportunity to introduce Austar to you and to assure you that
if the takeover offer is successful, we are committed to maintaining and
improving the high standard of service you currently receive.

Austar is one of Australia's leading pay television operators. We have
invested hundreds of millions of dollars building a business in regional
Australia which serves over 400,000 customers and employs more than 1,100
people.

Austar has recently launched an internet service, austar.net. We aim to be
a major player in the internet industry. Acquiring eisa is an important
step in our expansion plans.

At Austar we pride ourselves on the quality of service we provide our
customers and we make the same commitment to you. We will maintain the
service you receive, support will be just a phone call away and we aim to
improve your access to the best quality content on the internet.

One of the most exciting things about joining Austar is the opportunity to
upgrade your service to broadband, with chello. The chello service is super
fast, super quality internet which lets you do things you only dream about
today. We will tell you more about chello over the coming months.

We expect the takeover process to take about eight weeks.

We look forward to serving you in the future.

Regards

Dana Strong
Managing Director
Austar United Broadband

News

Status change for Indonesian state-television network TVRI Indonesian state-run television network TVRI is now a "state company" (Perjan) under the Finance Ministry. It previously held the status of "foundation" under the now defunct Information Ministry. A striking point of difference between the two, ruled under a presidential decree dated June 7, 2000, is the new TVRI is protected from interference by other ministries. Although it continues to be financed by the government, the new TVRI will be independent in its programming, TVRI director Chairul Zen said.

RCTI to join News Corp empire News Corp is believed to be close to securing an equity stake in Indonesian free-to-air station RCTI, according to local sources. It is thought that a shareholder meeting will be called early this month to vote on the proposal and sources suggest that the shareholders will support the deal. Despite falling behind Indosiar in recent months, RCTI remains one the country¹s leading commercial terrestrial stations. Sources say that either Bambang Trihatmojo, son of ex-president Sharyo and the holder of a majority 70 per cent stake in RCTI, or the Rajawali Group, which holds the remaining 30 per cent, would be willing to sell. News Corp is also to take a 15 per cent stake in a leading Indian technology portal ITspace.com while subsidiary Star TV is reportedly launching a bid for a 20 per cent stake in Indian cable operator Hathaway Cable & Diatom. Meanwhile, chairman Rupert Murdoch told Maharashtra chief minister Velars Desmukh, during the latter¹s recent trip to Los Angeles, that News Corp will open a film studio in Mamba and will release details in September. News Corp also announced last week that in partnership with World Sport Group it has won the bid for telecast rights, sponsorship rights and Internet rights for all the cricket events organised and owned by the International Cricket Council for the next seven years.

TVRI and RCTI break away from Olympic consortium Indonesian terrestrial stations TVRI and RCTI have broken away from the six-station consortium that refused to meet the Asian Broadcasting Union¹s initial asking price for the rights to 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, and are believed to have secured the terrestrial rights independently for around US$1.2 million. The consortium of TVRI, RCTI, SCTV, TPI, ANTEVE and IVM initially shied away from the Abu's first offer set at US$1.8 million. TVRI and RCTI, however, are believed to have moved independently in a bid to secure the rights and will pay around US$200,000 for a satellite feed. They are said to be sharing both the fee and the feed. Cable operator Kabelvision has secured the pay-TV rights. An industry source said the pay-TV deal would provide Kabelvision with six simultaneous feeds of the games, although he could not disclose financial details. Meanwhile, Kabelvision no longer has the monopoly on Channel [V], following an agreement signed last month securing the music and youth channel carriage on the Indovision system.

Taiwan terrestrial stations form digital consortium Taiwan¹s four terrestrial stations ­ CTV, TTV, CTS and Formosa TV ­ have formed a consortium with the government to conduct digital terrestrial TV trials using the ATSC standard. ACE Taiwan has been named as the systems integrator for the project to work alongside Tandberg Television, which will supply the video compression, modulating, multiplexing and transcoding systems.

27/7/00

NZ 39 Australia 35 (Just in case you missed it)

Pheonix 333 owners this may be of interest www.handan.co.kr the manufacturer of the Pheonix 333 the 333 is also known as the Echostar 2000IP and in some other parts as the Praxis 9800ADP, let me know if you try a software upgrade. The boxs should be the same apart from there software.

Set Max on Pas4 has gone PowerVu encrypted (as mentioned a few days ago)

JCsat3 PTS has started on 3,960 V, MPEG-2/Viaccess, PIDs 1168/1169.

Palapa C2 4000H Sun-LI is fta (Pictured above)

Telefenua has left I802

The Sony Entertainment Television which is on Thaicom 3 Global Beam, has actually gone back to full 24-hour operation now rather than the 20 hours/day as it was for the last 1.5 weeks. It now operates for 24 hours, except between 11:30-12:30 Eastern Standard Time, when there is some advertising of a religious channel.

News

Magnetic storm forecast following giant sunspot flare

AAP --
A magnetic storm that could disrupt radio transmissions and satellites - and also produce colorful northern lights - is expected to strike the earth today and could last until Monday.

The massive sunspot eruption took place early yesterday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.

"The storm is expected to reach strong to severe levels, which can adversely affect satellite operations and power grids," reported the agency.

NOAA's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, reported that Friday's large complex sunspot group produced one of the largest solar flares seen in recent years.

The solar flare, a giant eruption bursting out from the surface of the sun, took place about 1024 GMT, the center said.

The event ejected billions of tons of plasma and charged particles into space, some of it heading toward Earth at 3 million mph (4.8 million kph).

The mass ejection is expected to strike the Earth's magnetic field today and cause the geomagnetic storm.

The Earth's magnetic field protects the planet from most such charged particles, but in a strong burst such as this some disruptions can occur.

As the field deflects the incoming particles they are moved toward the north and south poles where they cause the northern and southern lights, called auroras.

The NOAA scientists reported that the solar flare has already caused some effects on Earth, including some radio blackouts.

A NASA satellite located about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometres) upstream from Earth detects geomagnetic storms approaching Earth and provides NOAA forecasters with a warning about one hour before they reach Earth's magnetic field.

The sun is currently in the most intense phase of its 11-year sunspot cycle. - AP

The longest total eclipse of the moon since 1859 will be visible in New Zealand from the early hours of tomorrow morning.

The eclipse begins at midnight tonight, and will reach total eclipse just after 1.00am on Monday morning.

Astronomers say the eclipse will last one hour and 47 minutes, or until about 3am, and such a duration won't be experienced again until after the year 3000.

All of New Zealand, Australia and parts of South America will be able to witness the eclipse.

Scientists say meteor showers should also be more visible during the eclipse event.

Meanwhile US scientists say a huge solar flare produced by a large sunspot group is expected to produce a geomagnetic storm that could disrupt electric power grids and satellite operations.

The flare spewed out billions of tonnes of plasma and charged particles last night, that are expected to reach the Earth's magnetic field tomorrow morning, NZ time.

The Space Environment Centre in Boulder, Colorado, said the storm was expected to reach strong to severe levels, which can adversely affect satellite operations and power grids.

The centre predicted similar disruptions last month but the emissions from that flare were harmlessly deflected by the Earth's magnetic shield.

In March of 1989, a solar storm knocked out the electrical system in all of Quebec and destroyed a large power transformer in New Jersey.

15/7/00

Not a lot happening today, I have the 300k Indian video streams almost finished I just need to screengrab them..Don'y have a highspeed connection?? not to worry I have Streambox vcr to put online a handy util you just cut and paste the address of the 300k stream and it will download it direct to your harddrive for playback later at full speed!

Pas 4 Sony Ent Max to encrypt? Watching the cricket last night on the net, they kept announcing SET Max to encrypt 4.am IST July 15th...reports needed when/if it happens.

Zee's monsoon magic

Bugged by the monsoons, chill out with ZEE'S monsoon hungama, a new package of serials and game shows.

Breakfast with Zee, (Monday to Saturday at 8AM) is a daily morning show anchored by Roshan Abbas and Smita Malhotra. In addition to infotainment it has a film and music section anchored by Nazir.

Little Mirchi Thoda Pepper (from July 24 on Mondays at 8.55 p.m) is a totally new show delving into the man's world with a different perspective. Directed by Saurabh Shukla and produced by Monika Chandna and Barnali Ray Shukla, this show promises to be a good entertainer.

Dastak- a knock for help (Sundays at 12.30 p.m) is a social programme by Vipin Handa through which the distressed can voice their opinions and seek help about various issues like old age, rape, suicide etc. The programme says Zee will bring together various institutions and organisations to try and solve people's problems.

Jackpot Jeeto, an interactive game show, anchored by Manpreet Brar and directed by Derek O'Brien will air on Fridays 7.20 p.m. It will consist of teams of family members and relatives who will compete with each other to win a jackpot of Rs 1 lakh every episode.

Khiladi No.1 is another game show which will have a unique way in which each team will consist of a father, mother and son who will try to perform each other's traditional tasks promising loads of fun. Starting from July20 it will air every Thursday at 7.20 p.m.

Without Make-up with Mahesh Bhatt will offer viewers a never before seen insight into the lives of stars who will shed their glamour to have a chat with Mahesh Bhatt. The show will start airing from June 24 on Saturdays at 7.20 p.m with Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpai, Raveena Tandon and Gulshan Grover slated to appear in the initial episodes.

Sampat & Sampat is a family show about a widow, Kiran Sampat (Farida Jalal) and her five daughters whose lives change with respect to changes in their little hometown. With a story written by Sujit Sen and episodes shot in Mahabaleshwar it promises to be a visual and emotional experience.

Samay, a story revolving around the troubles faced by elderly people will air from July 4 every Tuesday at 9.25 p.m. The character of Amma interacting with her family members with whom she stays is the center of the story.

14/7/00

Thanks to those who supplied the Silicon Chip magazine website..I will send off an e-mail to them advising them of my site soon. Not a lot to report for today I did run the spell checker over the site hopefully it fixed a number of spelling mistakes. Sorry about the delayed update! Workng on something for those that enjoy the Indian channels, some 300k video streams of them!

CNN International has another set of numbers to thump its chest about. The International Air Traveller's survey (IATS Asia 7) - conducted by the European Data & Research Ltd (EDR) between March and April 2000 in the international departure/gate areas of ten major airports in Sydney, Melbourne, Manila, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Singapore and Taipei - has revealed that CNN reaches more than twice the number of international air traveller's than its nearest rival the Beeb.

The survey shows that CNNI reaches 37 per cent of international air traveller's on a weekly basis as against BBC World's 19 per cent and CNBC Asia's 15.4 per cent. IATS Asia 7 also confirmed that CNN International reaches 50 per cent of all senior business executives surveyed, the CNN press release states.

"This is a very positive result for CNN International. (It) endorse(s) our investment in regionalization, which has meant a significant amount of extra spending to increase the localised content available to our viewers, " says CNN International managing editor, Asia Pacific Bill Baggitt.

India's number two private Hindi entertainment television channel Sony Entertainment Television (SET) is believed to have been valued at US$2.5 billion, the leading Indian financial daily The Economic Times reported today.

SET's promoters -Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) and a group of Indian entrepreneurs which includes cine star Jackie Shroff - have reportedly divested five per cent of the company's equity in favour of Capital International. Capital International has coughed up US$125 million for the five per cent stake which will be pumped into SET's Indian and Singapore outfits through its Japanese arm Capital Japan. SET has operations in India through SET India Ltd and in Singapore through SET Satellite (Singapore) Pte Ltd.

The US$125 million valuation for a five per cent stake gives SET an enterprise valuation valuation of US$2.5 billion. The promoters had at one stage expected the valuation to be in the region of US$5 billion. One of the promoters had candidly admitted to http://www.indiantelevision.com that that was the valuation about six months ago.

But apparently the downtrend in media stocks in India and the nosedive in the valuation of Zee Telefilms Ltd - which has seen its market capitalisation evaporate to one fourth of what it was in the early part of this year - led to a lower valuation for SET.

The newspaper says that there was disagreement between the Indian promoters and SPE on the modus operandi of divestment. Capital Japan was believed to be in favour of an early exit through an initial public offering (IPO) within a year of it taking a stake in SET. SPE, however, was against any commitment on the timeframe for an IPO.

SET, the newspaper says, convinced Capital Japan to extend the timeframe to 24 months. SPE, apparently, is believed to be unhappy about this also.

However, that' s an issue which will be resolved over time. For the nonce, SET India can be happy that it has managed to get some funds in its kitty which will go a long way in its battle with market leader Zee TV.

None of the officials in SET India or its promoters were willing to comment on the The Economic Times news report.

"THE OBSCENITY CHARGES WILL NOT STICK"

It's a controversy no one would like to be embroiled in. For nearly a fortnight now, the Indian media has been full of reports about how youth channel, Channel [V] broke all levels of decency when it aired an episode, which showed two girls stripping on a dare on the show V, Dares You. The backlash has been tremendous: Political parties, some social groups have been hurling muck at it calling it a sinner. Six of its executives were arrested and had to even visit a local police station in Mumbai. The management of the channel which has Suresh Bala as its general manager has perceptibly been slow to react which helped the issue snowball into a bit of a crisis. But the fight back has been there: with Bala affirming time and again that Channel V was perfectly fine in airing the episode, though it chose to withdraw it after a lot of hue and cry; that it had committed no crime. The Indian Cab&Sat Reporter spoke to Bala on the controversy and what the Star TV group is doing towards damage control. Excerpts:

CAN YOU GIVE THE LOWDOWN ON THE CONTROVERSY?
The episode was shot in a Mumbai suburb on the main street with thousands of watchers on 26 March. In mid-April and through May the two and a half minute clip was aired on the channel. And it was repeated a few times thereafter. There was not a single call about the offensiveness of the show. Suddenly, on 6 June somebody from the directorate of health services wrote to the social service cell of the police in Mumbai against the strip show which the girls did. The social service cell asked for names and a copy of the show on a cassette. Within hours of receiving that note we pulled it off the air, not only that episode but the entire show V Dares You. The police investigation went on for two days and we co-operated with them and provided them with all the information that they had sought. We offered to apologise to the complainant but were dissuaded.

The problem really started with the appearance of a motivated story in The Economic Times, Delhi edition. How the story broke in the Delhi edition of the paper when the incident was in Mumbai when the charges had not been filed remains a mystery? The police issued a press release almost two days before we could access a copy of the first information report (FIR) detailing the charges. Then the entire media rode the story. The press was always ahead of us. The press was the first to publish the First Information Report filed. This happened last Tuesday when we ourselves saw the official copy only on Thursday in the courts at 4:30 PM. Over 100 publications carried stories around the controversy. There was a political backlash with some protests by some political parties outside our office. On Friday and Saturday we were told to bring our nine executives to the police station and they were released on bail immediately.

WHY DID THE MANAGEMENT FAIL TO COME UP WITH A CRISIS MANAGEMENT STRATEGY QUICKLY ENOUGH?
We could not respond as we needed to understand under which acts we were being hauled up. Because there were so many of them being hurled against us. What made things worse was the fact that Zee TV aired the stripping interstitial 41 times for 63 minutes across its channels, Alpha, Siticable and Zee News. They had extracted the most so called obscene parts; they did not blur or mask any shots. They showed it on a free-to-air channel which reaches out to a much larger audience than Channel V does as we are an encrypted and pay TV service. If it was so obscene how come Zee could afford to show the same clip so many times without the risk of censure beats me!!!

DID CHANNEL V IN YOUR PERCEPTION REALLY SLIP UP?
To understand our perspective, you need to understand the show V Dares You. It is not about titillation; it is about challenges; it's about spontaneous reactions of shock, surprise of the crowd and participants to a dare. Underlying all this is humour, which makes the show one that youth could watch and participate in from their homes. It made it an interesting show for them. Coming to the girls: they took off their clothes; yet there was nothing close to nudity. The girls were wearing gym shorts and halter tops underneath. They were given Rs 1,500 as a prize for their efforts. The shots were not provocative; the camera did not caress the breasts nor any other part of their anatomy to arouse the viewers. There was nothing sensuous. We do not believe there is anything obscene. It's a bunch of kids having a good time. The dare was obviously done for a lark, for good fun. We do not believe the obscenity charges will stick. What may stick is the traffic disruption charge during the filming of the show in March. And vulgarity is a matter of perception. You have to only see Hindi movies and their heaving bosoms to understand what we are trying to say.

The only difference between when it was first shown in April and 6 June was the standing of the channel. In the recent history since TAM ratings came into being we have never rated higher than we do today. We are now No 1 by a big margin in both the west and the south. There is a 16 per cent difference in Mumbai and we have caught up with the national average reach of our nearest competitor.

WHAT NOW FOR CHANNEL V?

The complaint against us has been recorded by the Mumbai high court. The charge-sheet has to be completed and filed. After that the battle becomes a legal one. And the law will take its course. We have hired the office of Mahesh Jethmalani, one of the top lawyers in the country. The Channel V team consisting of Steve Smith, Peter Mukerjea, Jagdish Kumar and myself our keeping a close watch on developments. We will fight it out. We are in the media business and hence have to do what is needed. We have apologised and yanked the show off the air. We will review our policy relating to that show. We believe the entire issue is a business to business fight which is being expanded to proportions much beyond what is warranted. We were vulnerable and somebody has exploited it. We are considering every legal option to protect our interests.

13/7/00

Thanks to those that joined in the chatroom last night its good to chat with other dishheads. To the guy who was asking about the Pheonix receiver manufacturer. It appears to be the same hardware wise as the Echostar 3000I.P a very popular model in the U.K if its the same hardware wise and pcb wise then it may be possible to update the software to "Echostar it" For those that didn't know the Satfacts sites being updated again there is a good new feature on it TECHNICAL X-CHANGE: on page 2 for discussion of hardware and software problems. Lots of user feedback for today which is great and record hits on the site yesterday as well..For those after the "Malaysian Satellite Bargains" posted a few days ago should read the email i was sent from Morris (Thailand) he mentions "PS DID ANYONE FIND OUT IF THAT SITE IN MALAYSIA GENUINE OR A HOAX AS THE PRICES JUST RIDICULOUS.ALSO SAT OWNERSHIP BANNED IN MALAYSIA OTHER THAN FOR ASTRO"... others have reported no response to emails..I suggest stear clear at the moment ..

A request from me

Can someone send me the website of Silicon Chip magazine

A request from a user of the Chatroom.

Does anyone have the Factory settings pin for the Boomerang box? 6 digits apparently?

New signal, Asiasat 3 3660V Pal "Urdu TV Network" yes analog!

From my emails

GREETINGS FROM THAILAND. ENJOY YOUR SITE IMMENSELY EVERY SINGLE DAY.
IN REPLY TO YOUR QUESTION YESTERDAY, YES WE GET A SUPERB PICTURE FROM LMI AND WATCH BOTH KU PRGS, ISRAEL ON THE ANALOGUE AND THIS HAS MANY GOOD ENGLISH , (NOTE SURPRISINGLY NOT AMERICAN PROGS.!) AND THE FILIPINO CHANNEL IN DIGITAL WITH A MIXTURE OF ENGLISH AND TAGALOG. IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING,
WE RECEIVE THE C BAND MALALASY TV ALSO.
THIS SAT MAKES HISTORY AS IT HAS THE FIRST KU SIGNALS TO HAVE A STRONG FOOTPRINT OVER THAILAND OTHER THAN THAICOM.(WITH A 12 FT DISH CAN RECEIVE
FORMOSA TV IN KU BAND FROM PAS 2 ALSO BUT THAT IS IN CHINESE OF COURSE).
IT MIGHT INTEREST YOU TO KNOW A LARGE THAI SAT RETAILER . IS SHORTLY TO SELL A C/KU LNBF...MOLDED AS ONE PIECE FOR ABOUT FIFTY DOLLARS US ... WITH A GOOD NOISE RATING ALSO SOMETHING THAT HAS BEEN NEEDED FOR A LONG WHILE AS THE CHAPPAREL COROTOR PLUS 2 LNB'S JUST TOO EXPENSIVE .
BEST WISHES MORRIS BANGKOK

PS DID ANYONE FIND OUT IF THAT SITE IN MALAYSIA GENUINE OR A HOAX AS THE PRICES JUST RIDICULOUS.ALSO SAT OWNERSHIP BANNED IN MALAYSIA OTHER THAN FOR ASTRO

Hi Craig

Re I701 RFO Tempo Tahiti 4086L sr 13347 fec5/6.
Yes they are definitely up and running on these settings in the central
South Island.(Timaru)
There is 3 free to air and 1 encrypted tv channels

This service is commercial and probably now sent only for RFO Tahiti which has 16 & 9 m solid dishes in Papenoo.
But, as in the past with RFO, the level could be high at the beginning and then reduced to a level sufficient
for themselves within a few weeks. Also they are now receiving TV Services in KU with the spot
beam S3 and could stopped using the global beam later on ? (This is only my personal opinion).
New Caledonia and Wallis et Futuna are receiving all their TV Services also from I 701 but on 11610 KU
with the Spot beam S2.

Enjoy reading your site!
With Satcruiser and 3m dish can load the RFO channels on I701 in
Tauranga (North Island , NZ) but can only get a very occasional still picture and "squeals"
of sound.
Forgot to mention that the apids and vpids load as recorded on your site.
Also forgot to mention that there is also Canal+ Polynésie (definitely
encrypted)
Television channels are labelled Tom 1 (It seems to be Tempo) and Tom2&3
(feeds). Radio channels come up as FI Stereo, France Info/FI, Contrib 1
Paris, Contrib 2 Paris, RFI/Radio, France Info/F

Pity I can't see or hear anything useful.

Mark Williams (A frustrated Francophile!)

NEWS

* PanAmSat wants new slot for Australia

PanAmSat Corporation has filed directly with the Australian Communications
Authority (ACA) for a new orbital location at 170 degrees East.

The new slot will allow PanAmSat to place another satellite in space over the
Pacific Ocean Region, enabling the expansion of the company's video, Internet
and telecommunications services throughout the Asia-Pacific, specifically in
Australia and the South Pacific. It is the first time PanAmSat has filed with
the ACA to register a satellite with the International Telecommunication Union.
Presently, PanAmSat operates four satellites that provide coverage of the
region, including the PAS-2 and PAS-8 Pacific Ocean Region as well as the PAS-4
and PAS-7 Indian Ocean Region spacecraft. The company will continue to expand
its resources with the deployment of the PAS-10 Indian Ocean Region satellite
in the first quarter 2001.

(Craigs comment a bit to close to Pas 2 at 169E! why dont they just knock a few of those dodgy old Russian birds out of the sky and free up some new locations)

12/7/00

Live chat tonight at 8.30pm Sydney time in the chatroom. Has anyone had a look for LMI 75E KU Band? try 12680H Pal Analog or 12608H sr 5043 fec 3/4 any sign of it send me a report. Other news, PTV2 on Thaicom 3 has encrypted this was on the V beam so I doubt anybody in Australia was receiving it. One TV Korea, has now left Pas 2 (moved to Pas8 a couple of weeks ago)

NEW on Pas 4 3743H sr 19850 fec 7/8 vpid 2260 apid 2220 "VH1 U.K"

Not much else to report today, hopefully I will get the broadband tv page up later...

Thanks to those who showed up for the chat last night, our deepest sympathy goes out to J.M at the tragic loss of his 3.7 m mesh dish that was destroyed by a big branch falling on it and then finished off by hail dureing the chat session!

Nothing much to report, can someone send in a report on I701 RFO Tempo Tahiti 4086L sr 13347 fec5/6 this was supposed to be harder to receive after they changed the settings for it but according to Satfacts website it may in fact load on a 3M dish now..

AV-COMM PTY LTD--SATELLITE TV EQUIPMENT SUPPLIERS

FAX: 02 9939 4376

NOTICE TO CUSTOMERS
PRODUCT RELEASE---PRE ALERT

DUE TO THE UNPRECEDENTED DEMAND FOR OUR $50 SATELLITE SYSTEM FEATURED IN THE JULY ISSUE OF SILICON CHIP MAGAZINE, WE HAVE NOW SOLD ALL 700 SYSTEMS.

IN ORDER TO SERVICE THOSE WHO MISSED OUT ON THIS SPECIAL DEAL, WE HAVE SECURED ANOTHER 1000 DISHES, LNBS & ANALOGUE RECEIVERS.

THIS NEW SYSTEM COMPRISES A BRAND NEW 85CM OFFSET DISH, DUAL POLARITY LNBF, AND NEAR NEW REMOTE CONTROL, STEREO ANALOGUE SATELLITE RECEIVER.

WE WILL BE OFFERING THIS COMPLETE SYSTEM IN THE SILICON CHIP AUGUST ISSUE FOR $250 INCL GST, PLUS DELIVERY.

WE CAN ONLY ACCEPT ORDERS BY MAIL, EMAIL, OR FAX, AS OUR TELEPHONE SYSTEM IS STILL PERMANENTLY ENGAGED WITH DELAYED ENQUIRIES FOR THE ORIGINAL SYSTEM.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TAKE ADVANATGE OF THIS OFFER PLEASE INCLUDE A CONTACT TELEPHONE # WITH YOUR ORDER AND ALLOW UP TO 2 WEEKS FOR DELIVERY.

Optus' primary and backup satellite control centres will use Integral's Epoch
2000 software products for Optus C1 satellite and associated baseband equipment
command and control. The Australian Department of Defence will also use the
Epoch 2000 software from their primary and backup control centres to command
and monitor the Defence Payload onboard the C1 satellite. The Epoch 2000
software will provide real-time spacecraft and ground system command and
control, as well as off-line trending functions.
Optus is the second largest telecommunications provider in Australia. The
company currently operates four of their own satellites (two HS376 satellites
and two HS601 spacecraft all manufactured by Hughes Space and Communications)
and other satellites for other operators.
The Optus C1 satellite will be a hybrid communications and military satellite
with a 15-year life span. Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO) is the prime
contractor and will develop the communications payload, while Space
Systems/Loral will build and test the satellite bus, integrate the payload with
the satellite bus and test the integrated satellite before launch aboard an
Ariane rocket

* Bloomberg TV on Thaicom 3

Shin Satellite Plc has signed a contract to broadcast Bloomberg Television to
India. Bloomberg Television has begun utilising the C-band extended beam of
Thaicom 3 to provide a trial free-of-charge service to India for six months.

The deal, which was struck just prior to Shin Satellite's announcement that
its C-band capacity was fully booked at the end of May, takes advantage of the
hotbird status that Thaicom now enjoys in India. Yongsit Rojsrivichaikul, Shin
Satellite's Vice President for International Sales, noted that "With over 90
channels on Thaicom satellites, India is our largest market outside of
Thailand, accounting for about 20 per cent of all our revenue."

PCCW brings TV-Internet service to Asian viewers

From Satnewsasia.com

PCCW Chairman Li: NOW is the ongoing combination of the best talent with the best technology.

Asian viewers will receive the first-ever synchronized TV-Broadband Internet service alongside millions of households across the globe. This is possible following a partnership between NOW (Network of the World) and Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW).

In accordance with NOW original plans, the initial service will feature daily live original content offerings that span the spectrum of pop culture and beyond.

"We have created a new medium, and we will build it one step at a time," said Michael Johnson, executive creative director of PCCW and NOW's driving force. We've been working for two years to take the lead in converged TV-web content.?

NOW was conceptualized in 1998 during the formation of a joint venture between Pacific Century Group and Intel. Production studios and satellite delivery systems were established in Hong Kong in late 1999.

There are more than 300 staff working on the production of the English-language NOW service from London. A 75,000 square-foot fully digital facility has been built to develop creative content for the world first truly converged TV-broadband service.

NOW rollout was marked by a special preview in London that featured hands-on NOW technology, which introduced investors, industry players, celebrities and British and international society to the revolutionary new network.

NOW delivers two services: A linear TV experience and streaming video synchronized to web content. The web material features bold, constantly changing front pages. With NOW, TV viewer and Internet users become viewers, who can drill down into vortals (vertical portals) for in-depth content, including video clips, graphics, animation, text and web links.

Viewers without a broadband connection can also access NOW with a dial-up 28.8 kbs connection, or through a TV set, where the service is made available by cable operators, or those who have their own satellite dish.

NOW linear TV and Internet content run concurrently, driven by exciting new presenters, creating a new experience for everyone, whether they are savvy net surfers or first time browsers. "As our service rollout progresses, our content will build", says Johnson. This new concept is organic, in that linear content feeds on the online product, and vice versa.?

For example NOW mp3TV vortal will highlight what might be the most-popular feature of the Internet; downloadable music clips. MP3 TV producers gather the top MP3 downloads and based on audience feedback, select the best clips, videos and indie web pages. Viewers can enjoy music groups in stereo on NOW TV, while simultaneously drilling down into the vortal for more information, background, and relevant links.

"Linear TV content is built here by people submitting music clips, videos, anything they want to send in", says Johnson. A hot band sends us a killer video, we show it on NOW TV, and our producers simultaneously create web content like bios, profiles, even documentaries. The process develops the content, and the same principle applies to all our vortals.?

Other NOW vortals include Gamer, which brings competitors from around the world together to battle it out on the Internet; Sport, now featuring a round-the-world microlight flight, the NOW Challenge; Mother-Ship, which focuses on the environment, weather and natural phenomena; and e-Mage, a vortal with hot show-business news.

While NOW's vortals appeal to niche markets, says Johnson, it's global reach and appeal will bundle these groups, building a critical mass of previously fragmented numbers who might otherwise have remained unconnected.?

"NOW is the ongoing combination of the best talent with the best technology,? said Richard Li, chairman and chief executive of Pacific Century Group and executive chairman of PCCW. "We took the top creative minds from TV, film, IT, music, journalism and design, mixed them together to produce something that offers everything for everyone. Expect more features soon.?

Content is currently in English, but will also be produced in Chinese and Japanese as the service continues to roll out.

Trans World International is a content partner, with a library of 100,000 hours, and a production rate of about 5,000 more annually. Other content partners include ERA.com (Taiwan) and Commercial Radio (Hong Kong).

Aside from the world wide web, the NOW service will also be available via the AsiaSat 3 satellite network, which can potentially reach more than 130 million households through Asia.

PCCW is the technology flagship of Pacific Century Group, which was founded in 1993. Listed in Hong Kong in August 1999, PCCW is one of the world's largest Internet companies, and is on course to become the world's largest broadband Internet provider. Through investments in more than 50 content, technology and e-commerce providers, PCCW is creating a one-stop-shop for companies to extend their businesses onto the web and to foster rapid growth across the larger Internet economy.

Pacific Convergence Corporation operates NOW and is a subsidiary of PCCW. It is poised to become the leading global provider of broadband Internet services via NOW, to be delivered through multiple broadband, narrowband and wireless platforms.

Star TV woos Indians with Hindi service

AAP --
Rupert Murdoch's Star TV has begun an all-Hindi service, hoping to woo India's largest television audience and grab a slice of the huge advertising pie.

Last week, the Hong Kong-based network, which has several English-language stations, moved to Hindi programming to take on Zee Television Ltd, a former partner who is now a rival.

More than half of India's one billion people speak Hindi, while Barely 10 per cent of Indians speak English.

"We needed an all-Hindi channel to emphasise our intention to reach the local audience in the local language - Hindi - and attract mass audiences," said Sameer Nair, senior vice president for programming at Star Plus, one of the stations owned by Murdoch's News Corp.

After Zee broke away from Murdoch, Star was free to increase its Hindi programs.

Star Plus India began in 1991, with outdated American and British TV shows such as Dynasty and Dallas.

Hindi and regional language channels quickly grabbed large viewing audiences across India with aggressive news coverage and entertainment programs with a local flavour.

In 1996, Star's audience share dropped to less than 1 per cent.

Since it began offering Hindi programs four years ago, its chunk of viewers has grown fourfold.

"But that's not good enough," Nair told Dow-Jones Newswires.

"We have to get eight to ten per cent (of the audience share) to be competitive."

Star hopes its all-Hindi programming will help it reach that goal.

Murdoch runs a variety of programming under the Star logo in India and in dozens of countries in Asia.

In addition to Star Plus, the channels include Star News, Star Sports, Star Movies, a music channel, and Star World, which broadcasts American and British TV programs.

The old bilingual Star Plus didn't have one program out of India's top 10 for the week ended June 4, according to a survey by the Indian National Television Audience Measurement.

Nine of the top 10 programs were broadcast on Zee TV, the other by Sony Entertainment Television Ltd.

News Television India Ltd - the local arm of Star TV - doesn't provide details on revenue or other financial information as a matter of company policy, said Peter Mukerjea, the company's chief executive officer.

For the quarter ended March 31, Star TV's revenue grew more than 40 per cent - helped to a large extent by increased distribution of the Star Plus and Star News channels and a rise in the number of paying subscribers in India.

Still, those gains didn't seem to show in the ratings or advertising revenue.

For instance, Hindustan Thompson Associates, a leading advertising agency, allots 90 per cent of its advertising time to Zee TV and Sony, and the rest to Star Plus.

Zee TV claims it has 19 per cent of the 24 billion rupee ($A90 million)) satellite advertising market; Star Plus says it has eight to ten per cent.

Star plans to follow Zee's strategy of focusing on women-oriented and family based Hindi-language soaps and sitcoms.

That involves replacing shows such as the nightly news with a Hindi version of the popular American show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Privatized Intelsat to Go for Broadband Services

Four INTELSAT VIII satellites are in service in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Ocean Regions. The INTELSAT VIII-VIII/A series has been designed for improved C-band coverage and service and to provide better quality for video services, and encourage new international VSAT applications.

Satnews Asia/ -- Upon the completion of privatization next year, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat) will focus on offering broadband-type services. The worldwide broadband market is expected to reach about US$795 billion by 2015.

Larry Valenciano, Intelsat Asia-Pacific's group director for sales and marketing points out that about US$64 billion of that market can be addressed by satellite. "That is a significant number, and we hope to capture more than 10 percent of that market," he adds. He reveals that Intelsat will be launching its broadband service in October this year. Thus, satellite services can offer lower cost compared to fiber cables, says Valenciano.

There is more incoming Internet protocol (IP) traffic for service providers in this region, while the return traffic is usually a low percentage. The traditional cable method offers a duplex mode where users pay for the same amount of traffic both ways. For satellite services, users only pay for what they use. Unlike fiber-optic cables, which provide thick route point to point services, satellites can reach multiple points simultaneously, even in the most remote locations.

Intelsat will be enhancing its services through a recent US$3 billion investment in nine new satellites to replace some satellites in the Indian and Atlantic oceans. The new satellites will be rolled out in a span of two years, says Valenciano. The first will be launched by year end.

Early last month, Intelsat and Sino Satellite Communications Company Limited (Sinosat) reached an agreement to offer Intelsat an option to lease capacity on the Sinosat-1 satellite located at 110.5 degrees.

Valenciano says that Sinosat will provide up to six transponders to Intelsat. Transponders are located in satellites, receiving and amplifying signals and transmitting them back to Earth. Sinosat-1 has a linear C-band land mass coverage, which is very attractive for Internet backbone connections or ISP access, regional business voice/data networks, regional backbone networks, multimedia, VSAT/virtual private networks, and video contribution and distribution networks.

Sinosat-1 has linear C-band landmass coverage which is very attractive for Internet backbone connections or ISP access, regional business voice/data networks, regional backbone networks, multimedia, VSAT/virtual private networks, and video contribution and distribution networks.
This year, Intelsat expects its sources of operating revenue to be nine per cent from Internet providers, 42 percent from telephony services, 29 percent from corporate network, and 20 percent from video services. The Asia-Pacific region contributes about 19 percent to Intelsat's current business, amounting to about US$200 million in revenue. The company claims to have about 70 percent to 80 percent of the satellite communications market in this region.

"Our major concentration here is the Internet as we are carrying a tremendous amount of IP traffic to and from Asia," says Valenciano. He adds that the company is targeting its services at service providers and corporate customers in the region. Intelsat's customers in Malaysia include Telekom Malaysia, Celcom and DiGi Telecommunications.

The company has a total of nine satellite locations in Asia-Pacific. Valenciano says that the company will have three more new satellites at orbital locations of 178 degree, 157 degree and 33 degree by mid next year.

Being an international inter-governmental organization, Intelsat is being tied down in many aspects, especially in the speed of decision making. Decisions usually need to pass through a board of governors and member governments. This has affected the company's response to the fast changing telecommunications market. "There has been a lot of deregulation and liberalization in the telecommunications industry, and a new group of customers are coming up with different needs and expectations. We need to be able to provide solutions quickly to a changing marketplace, and the only way for us to do that is to privatize and restructure," says Valenciano.

Intelsat comprises of 143 member countries, each member organization shares the cost of maintaining and operating Intelsat's global satellite network. Similar to other commercial co-operatives, Intelsat's owners are also its users. The owners contribute to the capital requirements of the system and receive capital repayment and compensation in proportion to their use of the system's capacity.

The target schedule for privatization has been set for October this year, with full transition and incorporation expected to take place as early as April next year. "Between now and April, we will finalize the details and recommendations on how the private Intelsat can be structured, including issues on jurisdiction and governance," says Valenciano. He adds that the privatization will allow more flexibility in forming partnership and joint ventures with other companies, and in offering competitive service packages to their customers.

16/7/00

Live chat tonight at 9.30pm NZ and 8.30pm Sydney time in the chatroom

Scat India magazine has been updated click the cover above to load it in a new window

from my emails

Aldeto send some shots of his Viva Cinema card.The Receiver that they are using is Pace DVS 211 which is exactly the same as the DGT 400 on the outside except there is no slot in the back for the cam (instead it has a couple of slot for the wires for mechanical skew for LNB). Also, it has a different software inside(Mediaguard NDS).
(Viva Cinema is transmitted off Asisat 3 inside the Star tv package)

NEWS

I701 4086L Rfo tempo Tahiti etc this package had changed to Sr 13347 Fec 5/6 You will be lucky to get this now with out a huge dish.

The sky's the limit

By DAVID ADAMS

Dishing it up: Many people don't realise they can access hundreds of free-to-air services via satellite.
"I've always been interested in satellites," says Patrick Middleton. "The first dish I got was at the start of the Gulf War. It was an antiquated dish that was going off to be crushed. I was just interested to see if it could be done - if I could watch something that was overseas. It wasn't a problem. I tuned into CNN and watched the whole lot live." Middleton, who trained as a radio technician and was at the time working in the electronic consumer products repair industry, moved into satellite-dish installation and repair as a full-time business two years ago.

Middleton installs and repairs dishes for satellite pay-TV provider Foxtel and Internet service provider TPG, which offers access to five "free" satellite TV channels via its Boomerang TV/Internet access deal. His territory is an area that centres on Geelong but includes places as far apart as Hoppers Crossing and Winchelsea. He also installs dishes for people to tune into free-to-air satellite channels and even the occasional dish for data transmission.

Often working six days a week, with his hours of work blowing out to 12 or more a day, Middleton has been caught up in what is fast becoming a substantial industry. There are now an estimated 2500 people working full-time to install satellite dishes in Australia, with a further 4000 working part-time.

"Satellite is just absolutely booming at the moment," Middleton says, taking a brief break before heading off to install yet another dish in the Geelong suburb of Corio.

There are already an estimated 900,000 satellite dishes in Australia and New Zealand, most of which are for residential use, and a significant proportion have been installed in commercial premises such as pubs and motels.

Bob Cooper, the founder and managing director of satellite installer and designer trade association SPACE Pacific, says the industry is undergoing rapid change, with new services and channels appearing regularly.

In Melbourne last week for SPACE Pacific's annual trade show at the Box Hill Institute of TAFE, he says most dishes have been set up to receive channels from pay and free-to-air satellite TV providers such as Foxtel, Austar, Optus Aurora and TPG, but many have also been installed to provide access to some of the hundreds of free-to-air foreign-language services broadcast from overseas.

Middleton says that although Australians are generally aware of the opportunities being offered via satellite pay-TV, fewer people know much about the free-to-air satellite TV channels. Among many of Australia's ethnic communities, however, it is a different story. While people with an appropriately large satellite dish can tune in to free-to-air channels such as the BBC, CNN and our own Australia TV, the most popular reason for obtaining a dish, Middleton says, is for access to foreign-language broadcasters.

There are literally hundreds of these running at any one time, beaming out broadcasts from countries as diverse as Mongolia, Saudi Arabia and Greece.

Some of these services, such as Germany's Deutsche Wella, are targeted specifically at expatriate communities, and others are directed at people still within their own country.

Because they lack the necessary infrastructure to broadcast to some areas using terrestrial links, countries such as Russia and China are using satellite technology to reach people in outlying provinces. In these cases, the fact that expatriates living in foreign countries can also tune into them is merely a by-product.

Middleton says the bulk of his foreign-language service customers in Geelong are from the Spanish community.

"It's a tight community where they talk to each other and you look after one and they'll talk to their mate at the Spanish club or whatever and it just goes on and on and on," he says. "It's all word of mouth."

Melbourne communications company Strong Aust Pty Ltd has recently advertised in the local Indian Voice, detailing the different dish sizes needed to pick up various free-to-air satellite channels, including several aimed specifically at sections of the Indian community.

A director of the company, Leon Senior, says most of his company's business is with Melbourne's Indian community.

But he adds that while much of the free-to-air segment of the industry is targeted at foreign broadcasters, companies such as his are now also able to fit satellite dishes for people who live in reception "blackspots" so they can pick up the Optus Aurora service, which offers free-to-air TV such as the ABC, SBS and existing commercial channels, to people who can show they can't receive standard TV broadcasts.

Senior points out that Strong is careful to warn people tuning into foreign free-to-air services that the channels they have access to could change. India's Zee TV, for example, started out as a free-to-air service but only recently encoded its satellite transmissions so they can be accessed only by those who pay for the service.

"We like to explain that before people buy their equipment but there's still plenty to watch," Senior says.

Cooper, who had the honor of becoming the first person in the United States to gain a licence for a residential satellite reception dish when he set up a two-metre dish outside his Oklahoma City home in 1976, says that with the exception of Indian channels, it is rare for satellite TV channels to move from free-to-air to pay.

He says a more common reason services change is that channels fall into financial problems.

"There's truth to the statement that they start off as free-to-air and disappear, but often it's because whoever is backing them finds something else to do with their money," he says.

Cooper says the backers of free-to-air channels can enter the industry after becoming hooked by the thrill of being able to broadcast to 40 per cent of the world and end up trying to get government backing to stave off financial ruin.

He explains that, to work around these changes, many people install motors with their dishes to allow them to target different satellites.

He says others install the motors because they want to tune into foreign-language broadcasters who use more than one satellite. He points out that there are about 30 services originating in China from eight different satellites.

In some countries such as Germany, people have been able to purchase off-the-shelf satellite dish solutions for years, but Australia has been slow to move down that road.

Middleton says that although companies like TPG do require customers to purchase their own equipment (in contrast to organisations like Foxtel, which retain dish ownership), home handymen can encounter significant hurdles if trying to install dishes themselves, "especially with the digital transmission where, if the signal's not 100 per cent, you just have no picture," he says.

"The larger the dish, the more directional it is. But even with a small one, probably five or 10 millimetres out and that's the difference between no reception and perfect reception."

Trees and other objects blocking a clear view to the sky can also cause problems. So can the local wildlife.

"I had a lady down at Ocean Grove and she called me up and said `I get no signal on my Italian television'," Middleton recalls. "So I went down and had a look and there was a big black spider in the LNB (low noise box - a small device that converts the high frequency coming in from a satellite to a lower frequency that can be handled by cable). I got a stick and fished it out and up comes the picture."

Getting a council permit can also pose problems, particularly within metropolitan areas. Middleton says he hasn't encountered any problems with the City of Greater Geelong, but trying to get approval from some Melbourne councils can amount to a "nightmare".

Middleton says companies such as Foxtel also have guidelines on the location of dishes.

"They have a team of quality assurance officers that actually drives around and inspects the job. If I've put it in the wrong spot, they'll make me go back and move it."

The dishes he uses, which range in size from 0.65 metres in diameter to receive services such as Austar, through to two-metre-plus diameter dishes needed to receive some of the foreign free-to-air channels, are all manufactured in the United States.

"There are other manufacturers, such as those in Asia, but the quality is just not there," Middleton says. "I've seen people who have used the low-quality ones and find the outer coating start to chip off and the brackets start to rust and that sort of thing."

He says the "Rolls Royce" of receivers are manufactured in Europe, but those made in Asia are just as good for general use.

One of the main changes beginning to sweep across the satellite industry - and one of the key themes of the recent SPACE Pacific show - is the use of satellites for the delivery of Internet content.

Where phone lines usually allow download speeds of less than 50kb per second, satellites are able to deliver content at speeds of up to 400kb per second.

"Because its a digital service, more and more people will start to use it for data transmission," Middleton says. "With the take-up of the Internet being so big, there will be a big push for that sort of service."

Many ISPs already use satellite links to download data and then pass it on to their subscribers via terrestrial links, and some have already begun to provide a service that allows residential users to send Internet requests via modem, then have the data downloaded via their personal satellite dish.

9/7/00

Theres not a lot of new about on the weekends usually this is all I have for today. I have received quite a few emails about a post in the Australasia satellite newsgroup reporting the following website http://www.jaring.my/pcshop/ comments include the following "Craig have a look at this guy's site in Malaysia, seems too good to be true on his prices,"

Take a look at that last link, picture look familiar? thats because I posted it on my website last month (check the history page) It was a photo of Mildura Cable in Australia..450 channels?? more B.S

Thaicom3 and Insat 2e have had a clean up, added frequencys details etc, Thaicom 3 gallery is looking good more to come soon. Ihug have began promoteing there new broadband Ultra account $59 N.Z take a look here I might shift onto it next month, they plan on dropping the 300 hour limit once the Southern Cross cables hooked up at the end of the year as they will move a lot of bandwith over to that.

To the reports

This from a reader in Indonesia

Hello Mr Craig Sutton.,
I read about STARTV program on CAKRAWARTA 1
Satellite. There is a major legal dispute
several years ago between STARTV & PT MALICAK,
(INDOVISION) the owner of CAKRAWARTA.
Apparently they had reached a new agreement.
It is more easy to receive StarTV using
small INDOVISION 80 cm dish, than 3 M dish.

About TELKOM1:
They only broadcast "TARZAN" cartoon several
times each day using Indonesian language.
But I read from a local newspaper
(SUARA PEMBARUAN) that PT TELKOM and VISION
International had signed agreement to
provide PayTV service through TELKOM-1.

PALAPANET on PALAPA C2 Satellite:
Plan for Internet DVB service for private/personal
users is cancelled. They only provide service
for large corporations and major ISP.

TELKOMNET TURBO:
Plan for Internet DVB service is delayed again
until August 2000.

From DDJ Hudson in Timaru (NZ)

Hi Craig

Yes Pas 8 Ku TVB-JEDI reception is possible in the central South Island,
Timaru.
Equaly as strong as ABC Interchange if not better, 52% on a Phoenix 333.

This morning there are currently four free to air channels.

We are currently using a 6 meter dish for Pas 8 Ku. Jedi are still only
transmitting a test and are apologizing for a breakdown in transmission

This from Bobby Davis, from 3ABN (Thaicom 3 )

While doing a quick search on the internet, I discovered your site. You
might like to know that the Three Angels Broadcasting Network signal has
been restored on Thaicom 3. At least that is what I am told. Just thought
you should know. If you have any questions on programming, etc. you may
visit our website

Bobby Davis
Producer, 3ABN

8/7/00

History page added this will make things faster for the main page to load as I can trim the page every 2 weeks or so

Sorry for the lack of update today, the only thing i have managed to do today is get the rest of the Thaicom 3 screenshots online and the gallery fixed up. You will notice I have altered the look of the Thaicom 3 page and added frequencys to it slowly I will get all the pages converted to the same format plus add the SR and pids, its a lot of work!! so please be patient!

7/7/00

A slight delay to the update today as I was out but theres plenty of news articles to make up for it. Keep on eye on Asiasat3 ..I have dropped the background clouds...Encryption formats page is here its kind of temporary at the moment untill I shift some more stuff around also I plan on only haveing the last 2 weeks or so news here, the page will be archived and put into the News history folder that way we dont lose news just because it old.

I got a reply from TV-B unfortunatly they didn't seem to answer what I asked which was if I can receive the TV-B signal with a large dish (I think Pas 8 KU can be received in the South Island where I am) would I be able to subscribe. (If anyone in NZ is reading please email me and tell me if you can receive the TVB-Jedi signal on Pas 8 KU)

Dear Craig,

Thank you for your enquiry. Actually, it is true that we are now using
KU-Band but as you know, the signal of KU-Band is very stong and
concentrate. Therefore, only our Australian customers can view our programs
at this moment and that's also why they can only use a small 65cm dish to
receive our signal.

"Apparently the guy in Sydney who is dealing with the Star Plus Pay channel in Australia in New Zealand, approached Sony Entertainment Television to get the rights to broadcast the channel here. The Star channels along with the regional channels such as punjabi, kaveria etc can be broadcast at the rate of about $1-4 per subscriber. However Sony has asked a price of $15/subscriber and wants a guaranteed clientele of over $250,000 to commence operation in Australia and NZ ! "

To the latest signal happenings

Jcsat 3, 128E CTV,TTV and CTS are FTA again..

Telkom1 108e Turbo TV Testing again on 3580H Sr8000 fec 3/4 (This beam is Indonesia only but should be viewable in Northern Australia)

Asiasat 3 105.5e "Urdu TV tests" 3660V and good news for some its Pal analog

11.00pm Syd Tennis Wimbledon (no body has seen feeds of this and reported it yet)

Sunday

11.55a.m SYD Rugby Samoa vs Italy

2 pm Syd AFL (no other details but live and on Sky NZ so try mediasat)

2.30pm Syd NRL Broncos vs Eagles

10.55pm Syd World 500cc Motorcycles from Donnington GT Britain (this may come via I701 but last time it was seen as a feed for Starsports on Pas 2 3934V sr 10850 fec 3/4, if not there try the other Pas 2 feeds channels.

NEWS

Broadcast Worldwide to rework on Tara Bengali programming

From indiantelevision.com

The Rathikant Basu promoted Broadcast Worldwide's Tara Bengali channel is being rejigged by its programming team.

This decision comes in the wake of the recent survey conducted by IMRB at the behest of BWW for its regional channels (read: Broadcast Worldwide initiates broad-based research programmes). The survey found out that the viewers were overall satisfied with the kind of programmes being shown on the channel, but said that the programming was "too intellectual". Tara Bengali officials claim that the channel enjoys 100% awareness in the Bengali audience.

Speaking about the Tara Marathi channel, the channel officials said that they were expecting the results of the IMRB research in a short time. As far as the awareness about the channel was concerned, officials said that Tara Marathi has been accepted and appreciated in areas like Pune and Nashik. As far as Mumbai was concerned, the channel is not being received by too many households because the Hinduja-run InCablenet is proving a hurdle. It is reportedly demanding high carriage fees for retransmitting the signal.

It can be mentioned here that Star TV has been roped in as the distribution partner for Broadcast Worldwide but the details of the deal are still being worked out.

Meanwhile BWW also has plans to launch a comprehensive regional cultural portal aimed exclusively at the NRI audience. Webcasting its original television software on the Internet will be one of its activities.

Sahara TV plans Rs 2 billion expansion plans

From indiantelevision.com

Sahara TV has earmarked Rs 2 billion for its expansion plans to set up a NFDC style film and television academy and a media club for media personalities. The funds for this venture will be raised mostly through internal accruals and the rest by tapping the balance.

The academy will have all the modern equipment like four air-conditioned studio floors (two for films and two for video), 15 digital video cameras, three audio studios, telecine equipment, reverse telecine, 33 edit suites, DVD authoring, animation and a full-blown film processing laboratory. The annual capacity of the project will be 20 full-length feature films and 10,000 episodes of half-hour video.

Sahara will also be launching its news and current affair channel soon. Besides this, the company also plans to launch a new magazine.

Shobha De: Bestselling author joins Tara Marathi

From indiantelevision.com

The regional language channel segment has seen a stampede of entrants. After Tamil, the next most competitive language category has been Marathi wherein close to half a dozen channels are jostling for a share of the relatively small advertising pie.

The key therefore to survival and well-being is differentiation which offers value to viewers. Tara Marathi, promoted by Broadcast Worldwide has taken another step in that direction by hiring best selling pulp fiction writer Shobha De as creative director.

"As the creative director of Tara Shobha De' will be responsible for driving the channel and giving the channel a distinct identity and long term vision," a press release from the company says. "Shobha has extended herself beyond the confines of being slotted as a conventional Maharashtrian woman and achieved success in several areas without losing touch with her roots. Being a proud and aware Maharashtrian herself, Shobha represents the mindset of the contemporary Maharashtrian, which is what makes her ideal for this profile."

De joined the channel on 1 July 2000 and she will be working closely with Rathikant Basu and the Tara Marathi team headed by Nitin Vaidya. "Giving TARA a contemporary Maharasthrian identity will be my main challenge here," says De about her role at Tara. "Today's Maharashtrian is not what he or she used to be. They are breaking away from stereotypes and are not confined to the conventional areas of achievement anymore. They are achievers in every field be it technology, cricket, theatre, Bollywood or literature."

ICC chief lambasts Zee TV's racism allegations on cricket rights

From indiantelevision.com

The International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive David Richards has labelled Zee TV's allegations that the council was racist in its decision awarding telecast rights to its tournaments to the World Sports Group/News Corp consortoium as "ridiculous."

In an interview to air on ESPN's Inside Cricket Richards has said that the racism allegation can be shown to be demonstrably untrue. "The ICC is made up of people from all over the world of cricket, from many different cultures, from many different backgrounds, but all with a common love for cricket," he is believed to have said during the interview. "And there are constituencies within that grouping of member nations from all over the world. It's just too easy and trite to say that this group did this or that group did something else. The decision taken by the group was, I say, on commercial grounds and it was in the best interests of the long term development of international cricket in all parts of the world."

Richards also pointed out that there was no indication of any rebel tour being started by Asian member nations of the ICC. "They are all responsible organisations and all are key members of the ICC. So if there were any suggestions of breakaway cricket teams or tours that would not be done through the official boards."

6/7/00

Thanks to those that turned up in the chatroom last night even those Australians who kept bringing up sheep as the topic of conversation. I don't know why you guys have a fixation with sheep...The encryption formats page will be going up tonight hopefully also the missing Thaicom 3 screenshots as well. The good news from last nights chatroom was TVB-Jedi on Pas8 is IRDETO i think we all know what that means. Not many subscribers for them ;-)

Gorizont 25 is at 103E, according to Lyngmark signals have been seen on, 3675R, 3725R, 3875R, 11525R also at 103E is Express 6, transmitting on 3675R, 3714R, 3723R, and 3875R secam analog. Not much of an update kind of busy today.

5/7/00

Live Chat tonight 8.30pm Sydney time in the chatroom.

Asiasat 2 Page and gallery has been updated others are being slowly updated as I get the screenshots. Just a message to those that asked about the new Indian channels on Thaicom 3 they are on the Vertical beam which only covers Asia rather than the Global beam.

To the reports.

From Jamoora, The SONY TV telecast on Thaicom is only "occassional"....it is only seen every now and then and does not go round the clock. Also, like 3ABN the channel has only been moved to this Satellite temporarily as problems with other satellites covering the Middle East and Europe are fixed.

S.M reports

I see that the TPG process for pay has changed. Now $21 per month with no internet time, pay about $100 less and they own the receiver and smartcard. Looks even an even shittier deal than before.

(This was bound to happen their facts and figures just didn't add up...)

Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting Ltd., the multimedia unit of Hong Kong's Television Broadcasts Ltd. (H.TVB), said it will begin offering international telecommunications services in July and invest at least HK$100 million in the operations over the next three years.

As this developed, shares of TVB went up 0.8 percent to $49.70.

The unit is one of 13 companies awarded a satellite-based external telecommunications facilities license by the Hong Kong government. The licenses allows holders to offer international telecom services directly via satellite, bypassing the international gateway controlled by the city's former phone monopoly Cable & Wireless HKT Ltd. (HKT).

Galaxy Satellite said in a statement that bypassing the gateway will allow it to reduce customers' international telecommunications charges. "The service charge for external telecommunication will be significantly lower when the market is open," said Galaxy general manager Stanley Tang.

The company said its first customer is a U.S. telecommunications company which will use the service "to transmit telephony signals to various countries in Asia." As part of its expansion plans, Galaxy Satellite will invest "not less than" HK$100 million over the next three years on expanding its Hong Kong facilities.

It has already installed an additional 7.2-meter dish to provide a satellite uplink, allowing another TVB unit to transmit a pay-TV service to Australia. A facility, expected to be complete by 2003, will provide space to build up to 20 satellite antennae.

Indonesian Government May Sell Up To 14% Of Telkom and Indosat

From satnewsasia.com

The Indonesian government may sell in December, up to a 14 percent stake each in domestic phone operator PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) and international operator PT Indonesian Satellite Corp. (Indosat) according to Rozy Munir, the Minister of State Enterprises' Affairs of Indonesia.

Rozy said in a written statement that the shares could be sold through public offerings or private placements to strategic investors. The government currently holds a 65 percent stake in each of the companies.

Prior to 1995, Telkom's business was segregated into 12 regional operating units, known as "Witels," which were centrally controlled by the company's headquarters in Bandung, West Java. The Witels each had a separate management structure responsible for all aspects of Telkom's business in their respective regions, from the provision of telephone services to property management and security, although they were not separate profit centers. But as part of its restructuring, Telkom eliminated the Witel structure and created eight operating Divisions on July 1, 1995.

PT. Indonesian Satellite Corporation (Indosat) was established in 1967 as an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT). It commenced commercial operation in 1969 and since then had been the primary provider of international telecommunications services in Indonesia.In 1999, Indosat maintained a market share of 86.4% for international telecommunications services in Indonesia.

In October 1994 Indosat completed an initial global public offering of shares and its shares are now traded both in Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Indosat provides international switched telecommunications services and non-switched international telecommunications services. It operates, for a period of 20 years, an Intelsat earth station in Indonesia to access use of Intelsat's capacity on Indian Ocean Region (IOR) satellites.

In 1980, International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) sold Indosat to the Indonesian Government making Indosat a state-owned corporation, and the sole provider of international telecommunications in Indonesia. At that time, the Indonesian Government transferred its ownership in Indosat's facilities to Indosat.

4/7/00

The entire site has been reuploaded hopefully all the pages and links are uptodate now. Let me know if you find something failing or incorrect. Thanks to those that turned up in the chatroom even if the topic gets a little offcourse at times.Sorry about the loading time with the large pics still at least you can read the text while things load.

They have a rather nice website http://www.tvb.com.au/ but one thing they should fix is the most important thing people want to find out and thats the programming take a look at http://www.tvb.com.au/channels/timetable_movie.htm as an example of how not to do a tvguide it looks like they have scanned a regular guide rather than take the time to do a proper html version. No mention of decoder type and encryption format but it should be receivable with 65cm dishs in Australia

Television Broadcasts Limited, commonly known as TVB, is the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong. It was first established on 19 November 1967 with only about 200 staff. The Company has now grown to a size of more than 3,600 staff including 700 contract artists.

Situated in Clear Water Bay Road, TV City provides over 80,000 sq. metres of usable area for the operation of the Company, including 4 outdoor shooting locations and 14 production studios.

The major activities of TVB are television broadcasting, program production and other broadcasting related activities such as program licensing, video distribution and satellite broadcasting etc. It transmits over 15,000 hours of programming on its Chinese Jade and English Pearl channels free of charge to over 1.9 million homes in Hong Kong. It is the largest producer of Chinese language programming in the world. Most of the Chinese programs are dubbed into other languages and are distributed to more than 30 countries, accessible to more than 30 million people every day.

Despite the prime time viewing hours, the Chinese Jade Channel maintains a remarkable average of between 70% and 80% of Hong Kong's television audience share.

The Company has always strived for excellence in serving the people of Hong Kong and its efforts are widely recognized. The Company has thus received over 240 international awards for its various television programming and program promotions in the past. In 1997, TVB has also been recognised as one of Asia's 50 most competitive companies; one of the top 20 companies in Hong Kong as well as one of the Asia's 200 Leading Companies.

TVB celebrated its 32nd anniversary on 19 November 1999. It will continue to keep its promise, delivering excellence in programming and cutting-edge broadcasting technology to the people of Hong Kong and to Chinese communities around the world.

TVB (Australia) is a wholly owned subsidiary of TVBI Company Ltd (TVBI), the international operating and distribution arm of TVB. TVBI was set up in 1976 in response to the growing demand for original Chinese language television programming. TVB (Australia) was founded in Australia in December 1999. Its registered office is located at Level 2, 338 Pitt Street, Sydney.

3/7/00

Live chat tonight in the chatroom at 8.30pm Sydney time and also at 9.30pm NZ

The updated pages will be uploaded soon. Many links have been repaired and bad ones removed so, if it didnt work before it should now. Hits were down for the last 3 or 4 days and on Sunday the satellite show finished and hits rocketed again.

I still dont have the extra 128 megs ram yet it will help a lot with updateing the site when it turns up as Adobe Golive4 takes a lot of ram..Oh well at least I have the lockup bug fixed..

Things to come...Message board, Articles/reference page, Users own personal page (show other photos of you dish etc) Searchable database of feeds, more satellites to be added...New Chatroom (If i can find a decent one), Recorded video streams of most channels, missing screenshots to be added, History feature (Mainpage shows 1 weeks news, old news is archived) New redesign of whole site, Asia Pacific Frequency charts, Satellite newbies FAQ...

Zee to launch Zee Sports despite all odds

from indiantelevision.com

Zee Telefilms will be launching its sports channel on October 1. The channel is temporarily christened Zee Sports. Zee was counting on the bagging of the telecast rights of all the ICC organised cricket matches. But it lost out to Rupert Murdoch who walked home with the telecast rights.

This was seen as a major blow for the launch of the Zee Sports channel. But the channel executives announced that they would go ahead with the launch of Zee Sports channel. The executives claimed that they have enough software for the channel to keep it going and to make it successful.

Zee has recently taken a 60% stake in the Goa-based soccer club Churchill Brothers. The channel is also looking out for similar tie-ups with other such sports bodies. Besides this, officials have confirmed that they will have cricket, soccer, tennis, athletics and other sports software for their new channel.

On the recent controversy of the awarding of ICC cricket telecast rights, the channel is up in arms against the ICC for awarding the rights to its rival group backed by Rupert Murdoch. Zee executives have claimed that this decision smells of racism and that they would not sit back and except his decision and that they are consulting various legal experts to take appropriate action against the ICC. Zee had bid $666 million for the rights where as News Corp/WSG bid $550 million, which is $1 million lower than Zee's bid.

Man who beat Murdoch plans global TV

03.07.2000 -

The scion of a wealthy Hong Kong family, fresh from waging war against Rupert Murdoch, has turned his sights on Europe and interactive television.

Richard Li foiled Singapore Telecom and Murdoch in the battle for Hong Kong Telecom, launching a share issue so hot that there were near-riots in the streets of the former colony. His new project is aiming his global interactive internet television project, Network of the World (Now) at the United States and Europe.

The son of Hong Kong property and telecoms magnate Li Ka-Shing, the younger Li has yet to make his mark outside Asia, where he first made his name in the early 1990s creating a similar satellite television venture, Star-TV, virtually from scratch.

Those who have watched the 33-year-old tycoon at work in Hong Kong think the crucial deals that will give his new venture satellite and cable distribution outside Asia will not be long in coming.

With the launch last Friday of Now, timed to coincide with Wimbledon, Mr Li will already be broadcasting to 130 million homes in Asia through AsiaSat 3. Outside Asia, he will have to rely on broadband internet access to deliver Now content, or strike deals with European and US cable and satellite companies.

"We can't disclose exactly who we're working with, but we are in talks with the major players," says one London executive.

Eventually, the service could be delivered globally by up to 20 satellites through a joint venture project with Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace.

But with the first satellites not due for launch until 2003, this is unlikely to be realised soon, forcing Mr Li into bed with existing players.

Stephen McKeever, a telecom analyst at Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong, says: "There is a logic to this strategy of linking content with distribution. There are lots of big [media] pipelines in Europe, but so far not much to pipe down them."

Mr Li's track record has already attracted heavyweight partnerships that include Intel, China's leading PC manufacturer and distributor in Legend Holdings, Australian telecoms giant Telstra, and Japanese cable company Tomen Mediacom.

Mr Li's net empire has sprung seemingly from nowhere. In fact, Mr Li founded parent company Pacific Century Group in 1993 with the $US1 billion given to him by Mr Murdoch for Star-TV. But it was only last year when Mr Li bought out an unspectacular Hong Kong-listed telecom company, Tricom Holdings, and turned it into Pacific Century CyberWorks, that the main vehicle for his global ambitions was created.

Analysts believe something in the region of $US120 million has been put aside to build the network and production centres needed to get Now on air.

But whether Mr Li's latest venture, described by Michael Johnson, his chief aide, as "the glue that holds it all together," succeeds will be decided largely on content and the ability to attract and keep viewers.

Deals with media companies such as sports footage provider Trans World International, owner of the rights to Manchester United football matches, will supplement the company's own media content created at PCCW's west London studios and soon from studios in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Mr Li has also struck content deals with Era Communications, of Taiwan, one of the largest producers of Chinese language media, as well as Commercial Radio of Hong Kong and a string of smaller companies.

But sooner or later Mr Li will come face-to-face with the big guns of broadcasting. Established names like Walt Disney and Time Warner already control far superior entertainment archives.

Meanwhile, in the British interactive market, BSkyB has counted some 3.3 million interactive television users, and in the US Microsoft's WebTV has more than 1 million subscribers. AOLTV, launched by the net giant America Online, is due to go live next month.

This probably does not faze Mr Li, who has shown himself fully able to cut a deal. At 33 he has already bloodied the nose of Mr Murdoch, twice. First by selling him Star-TV, a company that is still losing money, for $US950 million in 1992, and secondly by outwitting him in the battle for Cable & Wireless's 54 per cent stake in Hong Kong Telecom by leveraging PCCW's rising shares in much the same way that AOL took over Time Warner in January.

Mr Murdoch, and even more unusually Goldman Sachs, had backed a losing bid by Singapore Telecom. And last month Mr Murdoch pulled out of a separate joint venture between Star and Hong Kong Telecom to provide interactive television once it became clear that Mr Li had the upper hand.

For now Mr Li may have outwitted the big guns. But will he be third time lucky and see Now take off to become a global brand?

2/7/00 2nd update

The updates takeing longer than expected but I want to be certain everythings as it should be. In the meantime here is the info about Zee subscriptions in Australia/NZ

Dear X,
> The Australia & New Zealand bouquet pay TV service is NOT available right
> now. There is a lot of work that needs to be organised to get a service on
> the satellite. We are currently in the process of finalising most of the
> last minute fine details. At this point of time we are aiming to
> launch the
> service in the first week of August. This is the reason why you have not
> heard from us in response to your earlier e-mail. As you wanted detailed
> information, we thought it would be appropriate for us to wait a while to
> get all the details finalised before we could do full justice to your
> queries. We will get back to you as soon as all the details are finalised.
> In the meantime, please bear with us.
>
> Thank you for your keen interest in Zee, which we greatly appreciate

2/7/00

Slight delay to updateing the site today, I am doing a complete site overhaul, (This is not the planned redesign) Hopefully should be updated by 8.00pm Syd. Includeing some news on Zee subscriptions in NZ/Aus!

1/7/00

Thaicom 2/3 "Channel of Hope International" is new on 3551H also new is Sony TV on 3600H that should please those that can't get Pas 4. Not much else to report today. Hopefully I can have a good cleanup on the site tonight.

Sony TV Program guide http://www.setindia.com/programs/p_schind.htm

CASBAA focuses on India as part of anti-piracy drive

from indiantelevision.com

The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting of Asia (CASBAA) is getting active - finally. And it is on the piracy front that it is showing its teeth. It has placed India amongst the Top 3 rogue list of countries where cable TV signal piracy is escalating. The other two: the Philippines and Thailand.

"The Association will undertake and support new initiatives to protect member company intellectual property rights wherever possible," said CASBAA Executive Director Simon Twiston Davies. "As part of our anti-piracy activities significant funding has been set aside to undertake prosecutions to the fullest extent permissible in several markets."

The CASBAA Legal Committee, is working closely with CASBAA CASBAA the Motion Picture Association of America on this issue.

Recently, it spearheaded the switching off of satellite signal decoders operated by illegal cable systems in the Philippines as part of a "fingerprinting" exercise. Among cable operators suffering from disabled and de-authorised channels were the Fil Products systems in Dumaguete and Butuan. Among the channels withdrawn from distribution to the pirate cable systems were AXN, Discovery Asia, Animal Planet, Hallmark and Nickelodeon.

"Fingerprinting" enables a channel supplier to identify a "rogue" domestic set-top box that has strayed outside of its licensed market and for the channel supplier to subsequently disconnect the set top.

"This is just the start of a long-term CASBAA campaign to bring home to pay-TV operators and others the damage that intellectual property theft can do to all parties concerned with the legal distribution of multichannel television and datacast services," adds Twiston Davies. "In some markets the problem is reaching crisis proportions, not only having a significant impact on the channel suppliers but also on legally licensed and operated cable systems, equipment suppliers and conditional access suppliers."